Starting an ETF portfolio

Glad you are getting though the application, half the learning curve seems to be knowing the terminology used.

It seems like a whole other language some times...

Oh, and on a completely unrelated topic.

Is the Invest Smart portfolio always way off? It was pretty accurate in the beginning, but these days it seems to be way off (up to $600) and not correcting itself.
I know it's usually a few days behind, but it doesn't seem to be making any progress at all...

My account is finally open!

I'm still not sure what I want to do at this stage.

I just received a letter from westpac, and my current savings account will now be earning 7.35% (from June 2nd till October 31st) and then reverting to 7.05%.

So, is there much point in transferring my savings into Macquaries cash account? Should I leave it as it is and only transfer the money to Macquarie when I know what I want to invest in?

Cheers.

Just leave the money where it is earning the most until you are ready to invest it.

I've been pretty busy procrastinating, as usual.

I need to take action!

I'm thinking of putting maybe $5,000 into the STW fund and seeing how that works out.
I don't plan to touch the money, so it can sit there indefinitely at this stage.

Any better ideas?
I'm so confused.

The best way to learn about how things work is to just try it. The worst that can happen is that you lose your money - but even that will be a learning experience, so it wouldn't be a complete loss

Yeah, good point.

I can live with a $5,000 loss...

Actually, I am already living with a $5,000 loss from my managed funds. I'm actually quite surprised at how little that bothers me, especially considering my financial position.

I think I'll just do it. Like you say, the absolute worst case scenario is that I lose my money. No big deal really.

There's no way you can lose all your $5k in STW. It tracks the ASX200, and that index will never go to zero! Even if the market drops to 4600, you'd be looking at -20% or $1k loss on $5k.

STW is a great starting point.

Today would be a great day to go $5k into STW, over the past 3 days it has dropped around 160 points, so now is a good time (if you are long term holder I might add).

Tim