Short term Investment in Australia

[Sol1]

Dear All,

 

I hope all are well.

 

Would anyone be able to give me advice on any short term investment opportunities in Australia. In South Africa we had our funds in a money market/Unit Trust investment which

allowed us to have access to our funds within 48 hours notice. Therefore we are looking for something similar. We currently have our funds in a Commonwealth Bank but as you know the banks do not give the greatest interest rate at all and currently it's only around 2.2% but I would imagine that with a money market short investment it could be around 4-6%.

 

Please can anyone give me advice on short term investment opportunities in Australia. I contacted Investec in Australia and seems like they don't do the money market options unlike their South African Investec counterparts. I am not sure why as I understand Investec is a South Africa company anyways- maybe different money exchange rules in Australia prevents them doing this.

 

Thank you- I will really appreciate it.

 

 

[ottg]

Need to look at managed funds like Vanguard investments. Cash managed funds do slightly better than banks with the current RBA cash rate at 2%

https://www.vanguardinvestments.com.au/retail/jsp/investments/all-products#/retail

To get 4-6% you can look at the Bonds markets which is slightly higher risk than banks however timing is critical and not well suited for short period like 12-months

Perhaps just stick to Term Deposit that offers a fixed rate of return at the end of your chosen fixed term period. 

Not so sure where you will get ~6% for short term cash investments except if you use an home loan offset account which may not be applicable in your case

[RYLC]

Yes I agree that term deposit (fixed deposit) will be the only suitable option. I highly doubt you'll find anything as high as 6% especially with the liquidity you want. 

[Mara]

You may want to look at ING Bank, they do sometimes offer some higher rates.

http://www.ingdirect.com.au/rates-and-fees.html

 

[monsta]

I 2nd ING bank. They are on-line only. But they give me cash back on my every day banking instead of charging me fees. Their savings accounts are good, but only if you use them as your every day bank, 

 

You also need to understand that the cash rate is very low in Australia right now. That would be called the repo rate in South Africa. So any short term investment in an Aussie bank will be terrible. 

 

If you are thinking longer term, there are a lot of blue chip shares that are quite cheap now. Westpac and South S32 come to mind   (but I am no expert). 

 

ottg recommended vanguard. I have investments with them. They are a low cost option that doesn't try to outperform the market. So you are not paying excessive fees for someone to pick stocks for you that perform better than others. Often they don't get it right and don't earn their fees. Vanguard aims to give you the market average. They buy up a bunch of shares that represent a particular market. 

 

To invest you can either sign up and buy directly through them at a $5000 minimum. Or you can sign up with commsec (commonwealth banks share trading) and buy vanguard EFT shares (Exchange Traded Fund). The minimum trade on the ASX is only $500. But that means you have to invest a minimum of $500 each time. Once you have paid the $5000 initial amount to Vanguard, you can invest as little as $100 at a time. 

 

But with any share investments in Aussie (e.g. vanguard)... you will probably have to wait until commodity prices recover to make any real money. For example, the big banks are blue chip shares, but they have all loaned money to large mining projects that may not make profits until commodity prices improve.

 

As with all investments, always find the Product Disclosure Statement and read it!

 

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by monsta

[Donovan83]

+1 for ING Direct, and +1 for vangaurd. 

 

If you have spare cash that you want to play with, another alternative is P2P lending, like www.ratesetter.com.au. They offer between 3.5% and 10% interest, depending on how long you're willing to leave your money with them. The very important thing to remember is that this is NOT a bank account and your capital is at risk - if the borrower defaults, it is your loss. Ratesetter has a history of covering losses, but I wouldn't assume they will continue to do so forever.