AusFinance

I can't begin to fathom how stupid this is.

1. My mum and I sat down with the energymadeeasy website and a copy of her last bill. We found what looked like a good plan: Sumo Spark SUM874100MRE2 (archived) single-rate at 73.15c/day and 29.70c/kwh.

2. My mum rang them up and asked to change to it.

3. My mum quoted the exact prices (73.15c/day and 29.70c/kwh) as well as the plan code (SUM874100MRE2). They replied by saying those prices will change on July 1st and quoted us back some numbers a few percent higher than those two. Mum said yes.

4. Sumo emailed us the following "Offer Summary":

Wat. That's a completely different plan.

5. Mum rang them today and asked them about it, they said it's all they can do because our new smart meter is of that tariff type. We told them we have never been told about a tariff change or agreed to one. They said that because we're in the cooling off period with them we can cancel and we "should" go back to our old provider and old tariff, so my mum did.

We're left feeling dazed, scammed and confused. I've just looked through my mum's emails from the old electricity provider (dodo) and they notified us about the smart meter change, but no mentions have been made about tariff changes. I double checked and our last bill from them was single tariff.

Q1: Who do we complain to about the bait and switch? AER?

Q2: Who actually changes the tariff? The old supplier (silently), the new supplier (silently), the grid operator (ausgrid), someone else?

Q3: How do we work out what tariff we're going to be on? Can I lookup the meter number and find out, or just have to wait for the old supplier to re-enable our account (we can't login today) to find out?

Q4: Do we get to choose what tariff we're on?

An Australian has made a heartfelt plea for fighting to end in the Middle East, saying a global war could wreak havoc on innocent financial investments and superannuation accounts.

In a statement this week, he said many news outlets were not reporting on the most important fallout from continued fighting in the region. “A lot of people are hurting – this is the hidden cost of war. I’ve got two million in super. If this continues I could lose everything. Or at least 7-8%. I can’t sleep at night”.

Advocacy groups have come out in support of the man, saying many ordinary middle class Australians were scared. “Our hearts bleed for the thousands of marginalised groups of stock holdings that will suffer as a result of war. When the world goes to war, shareholder value pays the highest price,” one group wrote. [...]

In short:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he will ask for a "revenge" tax on countries that tax US tech giants be taken out of Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill".

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who had lobbied Mr Bessent about the tax earlier this week, said the decision was "a really welcome one for Australians".

What's next?

In return, Mr Bessent secured an exemption from multinational tax rules, which Mr Chalmers says Australia will consider the implications of.

[...] the number of businesses in Australia listed on the stock exchange is declining. This has been described as the worst public offering drought “since the global financial crisis”.

In response, on Monday, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announced measures to encourage more listings by streamlining the initial public offering process.

One of the most innovative new funds was released in 2024 – GHHF.

GHHF is a leveraged ETF with a similar asset allocation to DHHF (Betashares all-in-one all-growth ETF), but it differs from most leveraged ETFs in that it is moderately leveraged and with lower management fees, making it more appropriate for long-term passive investing. However, while it is appropriate for long-term passive investing, it is still further up on the risk-return spectrum than an unleveraged fund, so it is only suitable for those with a high risk tolerance.

Read on to learn more about how GHHF works, what it invests in, how much leverage it has, how it is rebalanced, how much it costs, and more.

In short:

Members of HESTA will be unable to access most services until June, as the superannuation fund undertakes a planned outage to change its administration provider.

Advocacy group Super Consumers Australia says members are "rightly worried" about the lack of services, which follows recent market volatility.

HESTA has more than 1.05 million members and around $88 billion in funds under management, making it one of Australia's largest funds.

We’re working on setting up the ability to spend money easily in Australia. We’re looking at Wise for transfers and starting to live in Aus. As we roll into collecting pay, are there any banks or credit unions that are recommended or actively discouraged from using?

ASX plunges more than 6 per cent at open

The Australian share market has opened more than 6 per cent lower after a series of large falls on Wall Street on Thursday and Friday, and in the US share market futures this morning.

The benchmark ASX 200 index fell as much as 6.4 per cent in early trade, and was 6 per cent lower at 7,206 points by 10:10am AEST.

😁

The battle for control of listed brokerage Selfwealth (ASX: SWF) has expanded into three-way affair after the owner of the Syfe wealth management platform indicated it was willing to pay $65 million for a full takeover.

The indicative offer, pitched at 28c per share, is up from the already upsized 25c-per-share offer from Bell Financial Group (ASX: BFG) which has been recommended by the Selfwealth board.

The Singapore-based Svava Pte Ltd, which operates the Syfe platform in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, also has made the fight that much harder for Bell by scooping up 43.4 million Selfwealth shares, giving it a potential blocking stake of 18.8 per cent.

Bell, which launched its first salvo for Selfwealth in November valuing the company at $51 million, was trumped by a rival $58 million bid from AxiCorp Financial Services, a Sydney-based global online brokerage group which was prepared to pay 23c per share.

Despite Svava lobbing an indicative bid of 28c per share, the Selfwealth board is sticking to its guns on Bell Financial’s latest offer of 25c per share – for now at least.

(this is slightly dated news)

edit: sounds like SelfWealth is currently preferring this offer, see email in comments

The number of companies on our stock exchanges is declining, as big, privately run funds take over established companies and increasingly provide capital for new startups.

Even when it comes to borrowing, there is a growing trend to avoid the middleman by bypassing the banks in favour of raising money directly from well-healed lenders.

While public investment markets such as stock exchanges still tower over private players, and our big banks dominate the lending landscape, the shifts are unmistakable.

According to ASIC chair Joe Longo, key risks around conflicts of interest, uncertainty over valuations, liquidity and debt levels are emerging as private financing becomes more prominent.

But, given it is so far mostly well-funded investors participating in this trend, what — if anything — should be done?

"The critical point is understanding whether there is a need for intervention …" he says.

"Whether it is for ASIC or another regulator to consider, or whether we leave the market and wholesale investors to their own devices."

That last option looks increasingly unlikely.

US President Donald Trump says he will announce new 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports into the US, including from Australia, which would come on top of existing metals duties in another major escalation of his trade policy overhaul.

In short:

US President Donald Trump's tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China have hit financial markets, with Australian shares falling sharply at the open.

Analysts say correction (a decline of of at least 10 per cent from the previous peak) on equity markets is now looking more likely.

What’s next?

US stock market futures are pointing to a fall when Wall Street resumes trade on Monday, local time.

Grattan's modelling shows that Australians who draw down their super at the minimum rate when they retire will leave the equivalent of 65 per cent of their original super balance unspent by the age of 92.

Tax payer subsidy for inheritance?

that many retirees are net savers, with their super balances growing for decades after they retire, for fear of outliving their savings.

"This is not how it was meant to be.

Isn't it ? How a something works is surely representative of how it was designed.

Does anyone have any advice or opinions they can share about ethically-conscious ASX ETFs?

There's a few lists around, for example:

• https://www.fool.com.au/2024/12/21/which-3-ethical-asx-etfs-performed-the-best-in-2024/
• https://www.canstar.com.au/investor-hub/10-top-ethical-investment-funds/

But it's difficult to have confidence in any of these ETFs without looking into them extensively, so I was hoping I might be able to leverage the community knowledge if people here have already looked into them.

I figure many funds may be less ethical than they put on. For example, ASX:VETH excludes fossil fuels, but has a large exposure to the Big Four banks, who are big investors in fossil fuels.

Also, return figures might be misleading if a fund's ethical criteria bias its holdings towards certain industries, meaning the returns could be boosted by one-off events in those industries. For example, Motley Fool notes that ASX:ETHI is biased towards US tech stocks, including Apple and NVIDIA, and so its performance last year was boosted by the AI landrush.

Fossil fuels and weapons are my highest priorities for exclusion, if that's useful context.

But in their new estimates, published last week, they say those super tax concessions will now cost the government $59.5 billion in 2025-26, which is $9.4 billion more than they were forecasting in January.

Would be chealer just to ditch Super and pay pensions? Or remove many of the tax concessuons anyway. That horse has bolted though I guess.

Earlier this year, the economist Chris Richardson said our super system was already acting like "a reverse Robin Hood" because it was taking money from poorer Australians and giving it to the rich.

Ahhh