The inaugural meeting of the South Coast Australian Shareholders Association (ASA) South Coast NSW Held was held at Catalina Club, Batemans Bay on Wednesday 18.01.17 with a very pleasing turnout. The next meeting is already planned and scheduled for 2:30 PM on Wednesday 8 February, at the Bay Link Community Meeting room in the Bay Link Centre, Bateman's Bay.
The South Coast of NSW has a large population of retired and semi-retired people, many thousands of whom are mum and dad investors trying to live on the income generated from their savings, or trying to manage a Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF). There are now over 500,000 SMSF's in Australia, mostly mum and dad retirees who are self funding their own retirement.
With very low interest rates it has become extremely difficult to generate sufficient income for many self-funded retirees to live on in their retirement. Traditional sources of income such as term deposits are now paying very poor rates of return. As a result mum and dad investors need to look elsewhere to generate adequate income from their investments.
Over the years the Australian Shareholders Association has set up dozens of small community groups of investors such as our group, particularly in more populated areas. For the past 2 years we have been keen to set up a group in Batemans Bay.
Most mum and dad investors are trustees of their own self managed superannuation funds (SMSF), and they are on a steep learning curve trying to learn about various options for investing in the stock market and elsewhere. Often they have no investment experience prior to retirement. While there is a wealth of information available through the general media and on the Internet it is extremely difficult to work out where to start. Even the terminology of investing can be daunting.
This is the area the local discussion group can help to address. Our 1st meeting attracted a wide range of interested people - some with a lot of knowledge about the stock market and avenues for investing, some completely new to the field. We all have a common need - we all want to become better investors, and learn how to generate an adequate return from our own self managed superannuation. Edited Minutes of the meeting are available here for those who couldn't make the first meeting.
At our 1st meeting it became fairly apparent that we had shared interest and a shared need in learning more about the broad field of investing. Members of the group want to learn from the more experienced investors in our group, share investing stories and information and begin learning from each other. At each meeting individual members will be doing presentations to show where they obtain their investment information from, how they make decisions on which investments to pursue and which to ignore, how to gather factual information on investment options, how to allocate resources to an investment, how to make decisions on when to remain invested in a product and when to withdraw, the various types of investment products available and their relative advantages and disadvantages, using software to sort huge amounts of information (e.g. which of over 2500 shares on the ASX) needed to make sound investments, how to keep appropriate investment records for taxation purposes, and how and when to review investments to ensure they are meeting your personal goals.
Our next goal will be to invite some high profile speakers to our meetings to improve our investing skills. A number of well known investment speakers have already ready been suggested by some group members. We will also be discussing the benefits of attending ASA investment training programs elsewhere (e.g. Canberra, Wollongong), and attending the Annual ASA Conference in May each year which features a wide range of intensive seminars and investment workshops run by some of the best investment managers in the country.
At this stage we have a great deal of enthusiasm in the group and are particularly keen to hear from other community members who might be interested in learning more about the world of investing and the share market in particular.
The South Coast ASA discussion group will meet at 2:30 PM on Wednesday 8 February, at the Bay Link Community Meeting room in the Bay Link Centre, Bateman's Bay. Contact Bill on 0419 612 401 for more information and to learn more of the ASA, visit their website here . Bill Radley
