Hi, my name is Josh Loretan
I am general manager for a family-owned building material supplies company in the Hunter Region of New South Wales. We employ 120 people to serve tradies who complete renovations, and build detached and commercial dwellings. Our work and client base is a bit like a Stockspot portfolio. It’s very balanced and we’re not exposed to the huge swings of the housing market.
Why I don’t trust traditional financial advisors and banks
When I first started work, I just put my head down, worked hard and concentrated on doing the right thing with my employer’s money and finances. I thought I really need to stop and sort out some of my own finances. At the time I was with AMP for my superannuation and was getting charged high fees, with not much performance to show for it!
I started researching the fine print on my AMP statements and made a list of the things my family and I wanted in retirement. Our approach was to reduce fees, reduce insurance costs, obtain consistent returns and reduce income tax.
I made an appointment with my then AMP financial adviser who was at the time charging me an ongoing advice fee of $1,000. I said I think we need to have a chat about this ‘ongoing advice’ fee, just to help me understand where we’re up to and how we go forward.
The meeting was disgraceful.
I suffered from bad advice and there were these massive losses in the funds I was in and the financial planner and fund managers still got their commissions!
I’d been paying huge fees. I decided to switch out of AMP and move my money into a SMSF (self-managed super fund) with Stockspot instead. My portfolio would well and truly be worth much more had I done what I’m doing now at 30 instead of 44.
“Finally, with each enquiry I had made the Stockspot client team was responsive. They personalised the response to me and it felt quite bespoke.
The problems with traditional investing advice models
There are many problems with traditional investing advice models. At its centre is the very cosy relationship between banks, financial planners and accountants. They can get referral fees for referring you to a certain product and they still win when their clients are losing money.
The next problem is that if a fund doesn’t perform well, they change the name of the fund and start a new fund and the fund manager moves on. I can point to eight different times that’s happened at other investment funds. The advice I experienced did not have my family’s financial future as a consideration at all.
It’s a situation where the adviser and the fund manager are in a win-win situation. And the person investing? You’ll win one or two years out of five, but they win every year.
Why I chose Stockspot
I read about robo-investing and then Stockspot came up. It was really interesting to me. I had a checklist in my head of what I needed to do to invest, and Stockspot ticked all those boxes. They had reasonable prices and I thought, why would I bother with buying and selling asset classes when this can just be set and forget?
Also, Stockspot don’t actually hold the ETFs they invest in. I’ve got ownership of the ETFs and control.
Finally, with each enquiry I had made the Stockspot client team was responsive. They personalised the response to me and it felt quite bespoke.
With things like real estate, the problem is a high barrier to entry. With investing, you can start tomorrow and start small, and it will accumulate for you.
Why I refer family and friends to Stockspot
Stockspot is easy to use and set up. The responsiveness of the Stockspot client care team is very good and they are easy to deal with.
I’m not a social media expert but Stockspot use these things well to explain investing and it gives you the right information at the right time. Stockspot know their editorial content and try and remove the emotion from financial decisions.
My advice to people considering investing
We live in a society where everyone has to look after themselves when it comes to their financial livelihoods.
Do your own research and look into things. It breaks my heart that hard working Australians invest and are getting wrecked by their banks and financial institutions. That’s why I do whatever I can to help with that, that’s why I recommend Stockspot.
