RICHARD CAYNE featured Seven Hills Japan Private Banking Continued

As featured in the Seven Hills magazine August 2007 edition; Private Banking services are not anymore reserved exclusively to the very wealthy explains Richard Cayne of Meyer Asset Management Ltd financial advisory in Tokyo Japan.  These days there are many options over Swiss private banks such as Life insurance companies or banks outside of Switzerland who are also based in tax neutral jurisdictions where they do not impose tax for non-residents of the area.  A Private bank account really offers in addition to advisory services a custodial account within which you can hold various assets such as stock, bond, mutual funds and hedge funds all within and from one central location.  Many offshore based Life insurance companies offer this custodial service at a very reasonable price with lower fees as compared to the traditional Private Banks making them a very good alternative.

Seven Hills magazine’s readers are High Net Worth Individuals in Japan

Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd on RISK Assessment

Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd says that risk assessment is an important consideration when choosing investments and conducting financial planning.  Usually, when people define risk as it pertains to financial planning and asset management, the response is that risk equates in some manner to risk of loss of current investment value due to poor investment performance or due to losses incurred as a result of broad market declines.  Risk, therefore being defined as the fear of loosing money.  Richard Cayne suggests, risk be defined more broadly as something you want to happen actually not happen. Risk associated with asset selection is manageable by picking managers who have demonstrated their ability to outperform benchmarks and indices and provide capital preservation over long periods of time usually 3-5 years plus.  In other words, don’t use funds that don’t perform, and don’t use funds that haven’t proven themselves.


Richard Cayne currently residing in Bangkok Thailand says that it is also important not to confuse market fluctuation with risk.  For savers who own mutual funds, whether they own good ones or bad ones, market fluctuation is a fact of life, and it is not a bad thing;  it is in fact a good thing as long as investors behave correctly.  In other words, don’t buy high and sell low.  Market fluctuation is the engine that drives the growth of mutual funds, and when an investor owns a quality fund for an extended period of time, market fluctuation enables larger share purchases at lower cost and accelerates the growth of funds.  For investors who invest regularly, a strategy usually referred to as Dollar Cost Averaging, market fluctuation is being exploited to the investor’s advantage.  When one invests a consistent amount of money on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly or yearly, for example) that investor buys more shares when prices are low and less shares when prices are high.  This results in the average cost per share being lower than the average price per share over the investment period.

There are other, often less considered risks; risks that can be as much or more deleterious than picking a bad fund manager. The risk that you have not quantified your financial goals and priorities, and therefore, have no plan, and no clear picture of your financial “outcome”.  The risk is that you will run out of money during retirement.  The risk that your financial goals and objectives will be derailed due to premature death or incapacity.  The risk that your desired outcomes for the people who are important to you will not transpire due to asset transfer laws and taxes.   Richard Cayne working as Financial Advisor in Tokyo Japan and at Meyer Asset Management Ltd has explained to hundreds of Japanese individuals how important considering the risk of not doing any financial planning for themselves or family that is truly the biggest risk.  Now Richard Cayne at Meyer International Ltd is also helping people in Bangkok Thailand and the region understand and learn how to manage and mitigate risks.

Richard Cayne when in Tokyo Japan said most Japanese feel challenged and wonder how to get the ball rolling and what the first steps should be.   If you have not done so already, start by creating a clear picture of what is important to you and what you want the financial aspects of your life to look like.   This is your life and your life plan after all so be as specific as you can.  Write it down, and then get professional advice on how to accomplish these things that are of great importance to you.  Good advisors, whether financial advisors, attorneys, accountants, or other professionals don’t give you a plan.  They listen to you to understand what you want, then advise you on how you may best accomplish your plan.   Start straight away if you haven’t already done so as waiting for tomorrow is a waste of today.

Meyer International Ltd based in Bangkok Thailand along with Meyer Asset Management Ltd form part of the Meyer Group of companies which is wholly owned by Asia Wealth Group Holdings Ltd which is a London UK listed Financial Holding company.  Richard Cayne Managing Director of the Meyer Group has lived in Asia for over 17 years with the majority of his time living in Tokyo Japan consulting high net worth Japanese individual and corporate clients on offshore financial planning, investment and structuring matters.

Article Source:- http://richardcaynes.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/richard-cayne-meyer-asset-management-ltd-on-risk-assessment/

Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd - Why invest in Mutual Funds

There are a lot of reasons why we use mutual funds in our clients’ managed accounts says Richard Cayne of Meyer Asset Management Ltd.  Broader diversification is important.  For most investors, it is simply not possible to get adequate diversification in a portfolio of individual stocks in order to provide adequate capital preservation.  Negative events adversely affecting one company can have a substantially negative effect on its’ stock valuation.   Most mutual funds hold over 50 different stocks or positions so negative events affecting one company have little, if any, effect on the total fund.

There are more reasons; some of them of even greater importance.  Because mutual funds are required to report their financial results in a standardized manner, we can analyze the actual performance of a manager over long periods of time.  We are required as advisors to remind clients that past performance is no guarantee of future results, but in the end, the best and most important filter we have by which to select funds, is that fund’s historical performance.  If a fund has produced top quartile performance for 10 or 20 years or longer, it is reasonable to assume that there is a reason for that consistency.  Short term results (1, 3, 5 years) are random.  The reality of fund performance is that in the universe of mutual funds in any asset category, there are perpetual top performers, perpetual bottom performers, and a lot of mediocrity.  Richard Cayne who working at Meyer Asset Management Ltd and in Tokyo Japan helping Japanese with portfolio construction and modeling says that its important to look at the funds track record not as an absolute guide of what’s to come but as an indication of the funds performance relative to others in same sector.

Richard Cayne living in Bangkok Thailand says that in addition, mutual funds make money in more than one way.  We expect share value growth over time; an increase in the value of our holdings.  Mutual funds also pay dividends and capital gains.  Funds are required by the regulators to pay to shareholders a very high proportion of the gains realized in any given tax year.  This is important, because with mutual funds, even if there was no share value increase in a given year, there will inevitably be dividends and capital gains that must be paid out to shareholders.  Unless you are taking current income from your fund and spending it (during retirement, for example) you will be reinvesting these dividend and capital gain distributions back into your fund.  The game we are playing with mutual funds is to accumulate more shares.  The more shares you own, the greater your account value, but more important, the greater the earning power of your fund because the next time a dividend or capital gain is paid, you own more dividend and capital gain paying shares.  This dynamic of mutual funds paying dividends and capital gains, which in turn increases the number of shares owned and the earning power of the fund, creates the horsepower to multiply earnings and is an often forgotten reason why mutual funds can be such effective investment vehicles for growing capital says investment advisor Richard Cayne at Meyer.

 Meyer Asset Management Ltd’s Asian based servicing office Meyer International Ltd is based in Bangkok Thailand and form part of the Meyer Group of companies which is wholly owned by Asia Wealth Group Holdings Ltd which is a London UK listed Financial Holding company.  Richard Cayne Managing Director of the Meyer Group has lived in Asia for over 17 years with the majority of his time living in Tokyo Japan consulting high net worth Japanese individual and corporate clients on offshore financial planning, investment and structuring matters.

Article source :- http://richardcaynes.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/richard-cayne-meyer-asset-management-ltd-why-invest-in-mutual-funds/

Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd – Common Investments and Correlation in The Markets

According to Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd, having a well balanced portfolio with investments which compliment each other is quite important. So many investors end up buying assets or investments that are highly correlated and end up performing about the same. Of course this can be good in a rising market but offers no downside protection should the markets experience a severe correction. This article discusses some of the most common types of investments and how they may be correlated with each other.

Stocks
Preferred stockholders have a greater claim to a company’s assets and earnings. This is true during the good times when the company has excess cash and decides to distribute money in the form of dividends to its investors. In these instances when distributions are made, preferred stockholders must be paid before common stockholders. However, this claim is most important during times of insolvency when common stockholders are last in line for the company’s assets. This means that when the company must liquidate and pay all creditors and bondholders, common stockholders will not receive any money until after the preferred shareholders are paid out. That said most people invest in common stock.

Shares & Debentures
Richard Cayne Meyer Asset Management Ltd in Thailand says the differences are that; SHARES- A Share holder is the real owner of the company and does not have not fixed dividend rate and no maturity period, shares are not redeemable but can be sold. Shares are more volatile and imply a higher degree of risk. A share holder can have high return and share holders have rights on residual income.
A debenture holder is the creditor of a company, they have fixed rate of interest and they have a maturity period but they don’t have any right to vote. Debentures are redeemed, they are not volatile and they have a lower risk and a lower return. Unfortunately over the past few years we have seen a higher correlation of performance tied to both stocks and bonds.

Mutual funds
Mutual funds are also known as open-end-company. These are one of the most popular kinds of investments and provide the investors the opportunity to invest in securities. Though mutual funds involve risks but they also offer two things, that is, the ready diversification and opportunity for the fund manager to outperform the market.

Real Estate Investment
In the opinion of Richard Cayne, Real Estate Investment Trusts are corporations that sell shares for investments in real estate which can be in either residential, commercial or both. This type of REIT (Real Estate Investments Trust involves the buying, management, ownership, sale or rental of real estate properties and mortgages. Again as we had seen during the financial collapse property having taken a nosedive and the equity and bond market went down along with it.

Commodities
According to commodity fund advisor Richard Cayne, a commodity is a product, which is of uniform quality and traded across various markets. There are generally two types of commodities, “hard commodities” and “soft commodities”. Hard commodities include crude oil, iron ore, gold, and silver and have a long shelf life. Agricultural products such as soybean, rice or wheat, are considered ‘soft commodities’ since they have a limited shelf life. These commodities have to be similar and interchangeable or ‘fungible’. Gold as an example had provided an uncorrelated performance throughout the financial crisis up until 2012 and had been a good compliment to any portfolio as it had outperformed most other investments. Now in 2012 Gold seems to be gaining popularity as a mainstream investment pushing up demand for it and as such we are seeing a higher degree of correlation with the equity markets than we used to.

Richard Cayne having lived in Tokyo Japan for over 15 years and at Meyer Asset Management Ltd has ties with over 200 global financial services firms. Richard is Managing Director of Meyer International Ltd based in Bangkok Thailand and is the Asian based marketing arm for the Meyer Group which is owned by Asia Wealth Group Holdings Ltd listed in London UK

Article source:- http://richardcaynes.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/richard-cayne-meyer-asset-management-ltd-common-investments-and-correlation-in-the-markets/