Macquarie Reflexion

Potentially a case of the manager taking no risk themselves. They take a small portion of the punters funds and lever it up for a shot at the moon and win either way.

This scenario is all about risk location disguise, allocating all of the risk to another party is a wonderful advantage to take home in any transaction.

Just a general comment about 'capital guarantees' and not mentioning any product, I don't trust the idea as you can't eliminate risk in the markets, you can slice and dice it and give it to others but it's still there somewhere.

Something people need to understand (as alluded to by Insight) is that these capital protected products are NOT RISK FREE.

There is a very real risk that due to falling markets, you will end up with 100% of your capital in protected mode, meaning that you will at best receive your capital back at the end of the period, while still having to pay interest costs and fees along the way. In this situation, you also have a huge opportunity cost, being effectively locked into a product which has zero chance of making you money.

This has already happened to some of the Macquarie products, and many other similar products are struggling right now with falling markets worldwide.

These products are great when things go well - but only the fund managers make money when things go badly.

Well that's done it for me on this one. Thanks for the feedback, I'm far more informed than I was 3 days ago. So does anyone have some suggestions for someone who is looking for something to invest in but is new to this scene?

The answer really depends on what you are trying to achieve.

In general, I'd suggest you start simple and learn from experience.

Pick an ordinary managed fund or exchange traded fund and invest some money into it. Once you understand how it all works, you'll be much more prepared for future investments.

Mate, a good place to start to get some ideas:

Travis Morien's Investment FAQ - Investment in one lesson

I recommend staying well clear of these investments.

I got ripped off when investing in other capital protected products via macquarie.

1) it can take up to 6 months to process a withdrawel.
2) during this 6 months then will take that month unit price, and then still charge you interest right up until the day they pay out.. so what happened with me was I put in a withdrawel in feb last year, ended up getting June unit price,but they kept on charging interest right up until September.. plus the funds had nill return, even though the market was going gang busters at that time.
3)they made about 3 calculation errors, all against me. the latest one was 12 months after the initial withdrawel request, they sent me a bill for $1000 saying they made a interest calculation error in my withdrawel processing.
4) not to forget all the fee's, entry fees, exit fees, loan break penality, management fees, and charged interest when withdraw; and not getting benefit of future gains, so expec to pay a extra 3 months interest after you get your unit price locked in.

basically Maquarie is not a good company to get involved in.. everything they touch goes bad..

Look at Macquarie airports? used to be a $4.20 stock, now its a $2 stock...

they put a lots of smoke and mirrors with highly leveraged and fee products so no one can understand what is actually going on!

My advise from personal experiance, STAY AWAY!

If your new, I would choose a quality managed fund.. like a balanced fund from colonial. Select something from this menu which suits your risk profile:

Colonial First State: Find a fund