I FINALLY made money from a Share Purchase Plan

If you have been reading this blog for a few years now you will know that I almost always get shafted when it comes to share purchase plans (or SPPs).  My investment rationale is always sound however I am always shafted by the mega scale backs that come with guaranteed profits.

Interestingly this time I ended up with a larger profit because the end result wasn't as guaranteed as in the past.

A recap on how to make money from Share Purchase Plans

I have gone through this in a significant amount of detail before but basically you make money from share purchase plans because

• You are able to buy shares at below the current market price (often in excess of your pro rata entitlement)
• If the current market price is higher than your purchase price from the share purchase plan you have made an (almost) instant profit

Basically the bigger the discount is to the current market price the more certain you are of making a profit.

However the big downside to SPPs (as I mentioned above) is that because the profit is so certain everyone wants to take part and everyone applies for their maximum allocation.  Companies often don't need this much money and scale back your allocation significantly.  They also don't issue the shares for a long time and take even longer to return your money.  You therefore lose out by having lost the ability to earn interest on this cash in the interim.

I participated in the recent Macquarie Group SPP...even though the terms didn't look as good

Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG) recently decided to do an institutional equity raising and an SPP to raise cash for a purchase that they had done.  When I first looked at this deal it didn't look great at all:

• Macquarie's share price was already incredibly high.  
• I was actually looking to sell out of my MQG shares after years of holding them
• A high share price isn't great because it can go anywhere in the time it takes for you to be allocated your shares and able to sell them
• The discount was tiny
• The higher the discount the higher the guaranteed profit.  In the case of Macquarie SPP it was only a 1% discount which is not really worth your time and effort (especially if you think the stock is expensive)
• They weren't actually issuing that much capital
• Relative to the size of Macquarie this was actually a really small capital raising.  In smaller capital raisings you are more likely to get scaled back which is the thing you want to avoid at all costs

This deal on the face of it didn't look that good...so why did I participate?

There were a few key points in the fine print which caused me to participate in the deal.  They included:

March 2015 Net Worth: $549,000 (+2.2%) and Goal Tracker

I love updating my month end net worth post.  I actually don't spend that much time during the month focusing on it because unless I'm actively changing something in portfolio it does me no good to keep track of where I am day to day.

This post includes a category of liabilities I included recently called "future liabilities" which is where I account for the fact that I have committed to spend a certain amount on different activities and that some of the cash on the 'assets' column of my balance sheet are actually already accounted for.  At March 2015 my future liabilities balance sits at $52,000 - a significant drop compared to last month.

March 2015 Net Worth: $549,000 (+2.2%)

	Value	% Change
Assets	$964,000	-0.1%
Liabilities	$415,000	-3.0%
Net worth	$549,000	+2.2%

My performance this month was actually much better than the $540,000 I was originally aiming for.  It was really driven by a reduction in my future liabilities balance (which I discussed above) with some other small positives along the way.

Below I have outlined some of the positive and negative factors which affected my performance

Positive factors

• A significant reduction in my future liabilities balance
• My future liabilities balance decreased by ~$13,000 this month.  Although some of this reduction was offset by cash (or an increase in credit card debt) to pay for the expenses, a lot of the expenses were also borne by my fiance
• We are planning a wedding together and a large part of the liability relates to the wedding and honeymoon expenses
• For the sake of simplicity I include the whole liability on my balance sheet however she has been saving and paying for significant parts of the wedding and honeymoon as well
• A large reduction in my credit card bill
• My credit card balance was abnormally high last month and I have managed to bring this down slightly this month (although not nearly as much as I should have)
• Continued savings towards my employee share plan and emergency fund
• My employee share plan is the only guaranteed return I will ever get in my life and I continue to contribute the maximum amount that I can 
• I will discuss this below but I also continued to save towards my emergency fund
• A particularly good outcome on a recent share purchase plan
• I have historically had pretty bad luck when it comes to my share purchase plans however one finally went well for me.  I will write about this in more detail soon.

Negative factors

Unfortunately this month had a slew of negative factors which affected my result including

• A significant step up in my capital gains tax liability
• As mentioned before I am starting to feel uncomfortable with the levels the stock market is currently reaching and I am taking the opportunity to sell some of my more overvalued stocks
• However this has the downside of crystallizing capital gains tax

3 things to consider before investing for dividends

There have always been investors  for whom dividends is the most important element of a share investment.  Growth in share price has not been their primary concern.  Some bloggers (such as Dividend Mantra) have their whole investment strategy built around dividends and replacing their income and achieving financial independence through them.

In the current low interest rate environment this approach has become much more common.  Investors have not been able to get the yield they desire from term deposits and online savings accounts so they have turned to high yielding shares (such as banks and infrastructure shares) in order to get the yield they desire.  Why would you invest in a bank account at 2.5% p.a. when you can easily invest in a bank and get a 5.0% yield on a commercial bank or infrastructure stock?

A problem occurs when some investors look at these stocks and their dividend yields like they would a term deposit which is completely the wrong way to go about it.  This post will try and highlight some of the things you should be looking out for when you invest in stocks for their dividend yield.

Things you should consider when investing for dividends is your focus

There are risks when investing for dividends is your primary focus especially in an environment like this.  Below are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself whenever you undertake an investment like this

1. If interest rates revert to more 'normal' levels what will happen to the value of this stock?

A lot of high dividend stocks have been driven up in price as people search for yield outside the fixed interest sectors.  If interest rates return to more 'normal' levels and people no longer have to invest in these stocks to get the yield then the value of your investment in these stocks may fall.

This is a function of the current market that you can't avoid and is a risk you need to know that you're taking on by investing in high yielding stocks.

2. What is the outlook for the company that you are investing in?

Dividends can be cut.  It actually happens far more

Importing my Japanese spots car...Step 3: Getting the car into Australia

As many readers would know I'm importing a sports car into Australia for a variety of reasons and I have been blogging about this along the way.  Part 1 of the series outlined the process of finding, inspecting and bidding for the car.  Part 2 involved all the steps involved in getting the car to the shipyard and all the nasty surprises in between.

This post will cover actually getting the car into Australia including the shipping, insurance, customs and tax requirements.  The paperwork and process is actually incredible.  I'm so happy that I paid the $1,100 to have an import broker doing all the work because the number of people involved blew me away.

Appointing an importer and compliance workshop

The first step to get my car into Australia was to appoint a compliance workshop (who also did the import approval process to get my Skyline into Australia).  I was required to put a down payment of $650 for the compliance work and then they swung into action.

Your compliance workshop is basically the place that will get your car legal for Australian road standards.  Different countries have different laws when it comes to car safety and the compliance workshop basically does everything to ensure that your car will be registered (as an added bonus they also give the car a service and change the oil etc so you don't need to worry about it).

Getting import approval...don't forget this step!

Before the car can actually enter

I have the goal...I have the plan...so now what?

I should start this post by apologising to my regular readers for the significant drop off in posts in the last month or two.

Part of this was related to burn out (I was simply trying to do too much at one type) but a lot of it also had to do with the fact that I was simply executing on the plans I have been writing and talking about for so many years.  Planning is something I can write about all day...but execution stuff is boring and actually fits quite neatly into my monthly net worth and expenditure tracking posts.

The good news is that my financial plan is working...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised but the truth is that it is slightly disconcerting when everything falls into place exactly how you expect it to.  I'm saving where I'm meant to be saving.  I'm investing where I'm meant to be investment (and being more active about taking profits and re-investing other opportunities) and I'm spending within my planned goals and budgets.

The one area where I am perhaps a little bit behind is my long running plan to start my own business.  Last year I started Banker's Pitch - a blog about Investment Banking and my original plan was to turn this into an information resource which could then be used as a platform to sell further services and informational products.  Although I haven't pulled the plug yet I'm thinking of re-focusing my attention and efforts elsewhere for reasons I will go into at a later point.

With the exception of the above though everything is tracking remarkably smoothly.

As a quick aside - the expenditure smoothing approach I took to big expenses a few years ago is probably the best financial thing I have ever done.  My wedding is fully paid for more than 3 months out from the big day and saving for the honeymoon is going to be a walk in the park.  We have managed to fund both these massive expenses without ever having to dip into my savings and investment portfolio which is exactly what I wanted.

The bad news is that a working financial plan is...well...boring

Having a plan that is working exactly how you want it to is exactly what you want...but it does tend to be a bit boring.  There is nothing to 'fix', there are no new strategies I'm keen to try at the moment and everything is tweaking around the edges.

That tends to make for a pretty boring financial blog...but a pretty good financial plan.  Half my effort in recent months has been to stop myself doing things for the sake of doing them.  Combined with this is the fact that I'm in the middle of wedding planning (which is the most painful thing I have ever done) which makes me want to focus on my financial life (or anything else for that matter).

So what's next?

My real focus at the moment has been my share portfolio.  I'm getting incredibly uncomfortable with the level the market is getting to and the valuations in markets.  The big problem I have is that I'm already very long cash and I'd rather not hold cash for long periods of time in a low interest rate environment and I can't find any alternative investments I'd rather be in.

Opportunities do rear their head from time to time but it is certainly not the share buyers market that it was 3 or 4 years ago when I was writing lots of posts about what I wanted to be investing in next.

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Importing my Japanese sports car...Step 2: Between the auction yard and the ship

I am importing a sports car from Japan into Australia for a variety of reasons I have outlined before.  In my last post I outlined the process of finding, inspecting and bidding for the car before actually winning my car at auction.

I thought it would be a quick and easy process from that point on...but unfortunately I was mistaken.  The whole importing process turned out to be much longer and far more frustrating than I first thought.

Working out who and what you are paying is far more convoluted than you first think

When I first researched buying a car from overseas I thought I understood all the costs and where all the different fees and services went to.  In fact it was far more complex than I first imagined and if I'm going to be honest I still don't know exactly where all the money went to.

The problem really stems from the fact that when you talk to your car import broker you are talking about a landed and complied cost (that is the cost to actually get the car into Australia and to your door step), back solving all the different costs along the way becomes incredibly complicated.

My car purchase was a case in point.  When I bought my car I was told that I had won it for a FOB (free on board) price of JPY707,000 however the actual price the car sold at auction for was more like JPY597,000.  The difference is approximately A$1,000 and although I knew that auction fees and transport costs had to be paid to the port I certainly couldn't work out how this could cost 1/6th the cost of the car.

Complicating this was the actual person I was paying.  The bill I received actually wasn't from the auction house at all - it was from what looked like a broker operating out of Japan so presumably they put a margin on top as well.

This was only the start of the number of fees that I had to pay...at some point I should add them all up.  You may ask why I didn't kick up a bit of a fuss about the fees I was paying to unknown parties.  The fact is that if I get my car for the landed and complied cost that my broker was talking about I would still have gotten a deal compared to Australian prices...so I kept my mouth shut.

Paying the auction cost involved using a foreign exchange broker

Next I actually had to pay the JPY 707,000 to the broker in Japan.  I had their banking details and I was going to go into the bank

February 2015 Net Worth: $537,000 (+5.5%) and Goal Tracker

I have been doing these net worth posts for almost 5 years now and I am constantly refining the process.  As explained in my last post I have 'reset' my measurement methodology to account for future committed liabilities (like my wedding and honeymoon) to more accurately reflect what my net worth position was.

This is the second month where I have included these future liabilities and is a clean month (i.e. you can compare back to last month easily).  My future liabilities balance currently sits at $65,000 so add this to my net worth if you want to know what I would have been at if I had not restated it.

February 2015 Net Worth: $537,000 (+5.5%)

	Value	% Change
Assets	$966,000	+2.5%
Liabilities	$428,000	-1.0%
Net worth	$537,000	+5.5%

I can't believe the month I just had.  In absolute terms this was the best monthly performance that I have had (outside of months where I am paid my bonus) since I started tracking my net worth.  The best bit is that it was a 'clean' result - there were no restatements or inclusions of big swing factors.

Below I have outlined some of the positive and negative factors which affected my performance.

Positive Factors

• My share portfolio performed incredibly strongly
• Australian shares have had an incredibly rally since the end of the last calendar year and my portfolio benefited significantly from these moves
• A couple of stock specific bets really paid off this month and I took the advantage to sell some of my FKP (now AOG) stock which I have written so much about.  I have sold approximately 1/3 of my portfolio locking in a ~90% gain (although  did crystalise a capital gain which increased my liabilities a bit)
• Additionally the Australian dollar continued to depreciate against the USD which helped my international shares which make up just under 50% of my portfolio
• My employee share plan vested
• I get a significant bump in