Noel Whittaker's Blog As we enter a new financial year it’s timely to think about the role of cash in your investment portfolio. It is a fundamental principle that you should spread your funds over three areas – cash, property and shares – but how much you should have in each of these areas depends on your goals and your risk profile.
The role of cash is to give you liquidity whenever you need it but the problem with cash is that you have no chance of capital gain, and you also pay tax in full on the income. In contrast the bulk of the returns from property and shares usually come by way of capital gains on which there is no tax until you sell. Also, if the income from your shares comes by way of franked dividends, you may pay little or no tax on the income if you earn less than $90,000 a year.
Another fundamental principle is that whenever there is a chance of capital gain, there is a chance of capital loss. This is why you should never buy property and shares unless you have a 5-10 year time frame in mind – this will give you time to ride out the down cycles.
Obviously, it is a waste of your precious resources to leave money idle in savings accounts earning minimal interest. A superb strategy is to deposit your spare savings into an offset account that is linked to your home loan. This will give you the equivalent of a capital guaranteed after tax return of the interest rate on your mortgage – this may be 5%. If you don’t have an offset account use your spare cash to reduce the home loan. If you have a redraw facility you can always get your money back when you need it.
If you don’t have a mortgage, but aren’t prepared to invest in property and shares at this stage, you can maximise your returns by using some of the online accounts offered by the banks or even putting it on term deposit. If you chose the last-mentioned option I suggest you don’t lock it up for more than a year. It would be a shame to locked into a rate if the interest rate cycle starts to move upwards again.