Weekly Wrap: Your views on finance companies

No prizes for guessing the theme of this week's news. Yep, it's finance company failures.

Friday, August 31st 2007, 2:53PM

There is plenty happening in this space at the moment, and lots of coverage. Most of the coverage is good, but we are starting to see some silly comments, such as comparing the collapses with the 1987 sharemarket crash and industry leaders calling advisers "clowns".

Here at Good Returns and depositrates.co.nz we have been trying to keep some good balance on the topic and provide sensible comments. Much of the commentary is running through Phil's Blog. I would encourage you to read it and if you like add to the discussions by using the comments link.

One of the good things to come from this sad event is an increasing level of disclosure from many of the companies. This is something which is helping advisers, but is also something which, I believe, should have been happening earlier.

Another initiative Good Returns is running is a survey to find out what advisers are thinking and doing about fixed interest investments. Please take the time to fill in this survey even if you don't use finance company debentures in portfolios.
The other good thing to come out of this series of events is work by the NZX and Securities Commission in flushing out information.

In the finance company news we have this week there are results from Hanover and South Canterbury Finance, and reaction to the Securities Commission probe into the sector.

How to avoid finance company chaos
It seems like a bomb has gone off in the finance company sector and things are total chaos. Seems like Iraq. The reality is quite different.[more]

What else is happening in the market?
In SuperTalk we have an update from the government on KiwiSaver enrolment levels. Currently there are around 130,000 people in the scheme. These appear to be pretty good numbers.

Also Labour took a rap over the knuckles for an advertisement it ran, which some suggested KiwiSaver was government guaranteed. A plus from this, I guess, is that it reinforces the fact KiwiSaver does not have a guarantee.

Our Insurance story this week is the expansion of one of the online insurance broker sites. This one has added health insurance to its offering.

Liontamer has its Water fund in the market at the moment. The company is running roadshows around the country at present and there are more details in this month's Special Report.

Mortgage rates are all over the place at the moment, some increases have been recorded and also, just for a change, some rates have fallen slightly. You can see the changes in our table here, which includes arrows indicating which way individual rates have gone in the past week.

One area we have been light on is People news. If you have a new appointment or know of one, please send details to info@goodreturns.co.nz