First fund update, Apple's new CEO, & the billion-dollar cost of climate change.

0:01Coming up in today's episode, our very first fund update. We're going to tell you all the investments that Vic has recently made. And we talk about Apple. It's got a new CEO this week. And it has only had seven CEOs in 50 years. So this is major. Why are the natural disasters turning into a financial disaster? We're going to update you on what is happening globally, climate change, but mainly with a financial lens.

0:23Vic: This is The Curve Weekly, where we read the finance news so you don't have to. I'm Vic Harris, a finance professional who's had a career making money for other people. And I'm Sophie Hallwright, ex-television and radio producer, sick and tired of not understanding how to invest or the economy, so we started this podcast. But before we dive into the headlines, here's a word from today's sponsor. This episode of The Curve Weekly is made possible thanks to Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan, helping you invest alongside your values. We're really excited to bring you the ethical hotline where you can ask all your tricky ethical questions.

0:53Each month, Pathfinder will answer the most interesting, popular, or polarizing question. To submit yours, follow the link in the podcast show notes. Pathfinder Asset Management Limited is the issuer of the Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan. A product disclosure statement is available at pathfinder.kiwi. How was your weekend, Soph? Oh, I had the best weekend.

1:10Vic: Nice. I swam in the ocean. Don't you think the UK, you don't think of it as a beach place or somewhere where there's nice scenery. You kind of just assume that it's... Gray and rainy. Gray, rainy, concrete jungle. I tell you what, British countryside is such a dream. Yeah. Like around Cornwall and Devon and all over there. I read an article from The Economist about the Cotswolds and how it's had such a rebrand post-COVID because everyone's like escaping to the country and buying houses in the country and like there's so many like new restaurants and pubs. And it's funny because people who are in what they call proper British countryside just like look at the Cotswolds like, it's not the country.

1:52No.

1:52Vic: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the Mayfair of the year. Yes, exactly. It's like really quintessential. Yes. No, it's beautiful. It's like the Hamptons. It's the Hamptons of the UK. You're right. It totally is. Or the Coromandel of the... No, Coromandel's way more low-key. This is like a beautiful... Oh, actually, some of it, you're right, is kind of built up. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah, you're right, actually. There's no equivalent in New Zealand. It's too small. How was your weekend? Good, yeah. Anything fun? Yeah, I went... oh no i was just like i just think taking holidays right now is not not the best thing for that yeah we i mean i was gonna take like a few days off and go to a major but that didn't go to plan so wait what do you mean so what didn't go to plan oh we're supposed to go on a friend's boat the weather was shit um so we didn't we were just in barcelona um which was still fun but I kind of like went down later and then came back earlier because a combination of work and and just weather I just think taking a holiday right now I'm just like I just want to there's a bit going on there's a bit going on there's a little bit going on it's funny though because a boat holiday can be so epic oh totally and it can be so quickly yeah the worst it was beautiful like it was very very lucky to have friends that invited us yeah it was amazing so but I mean the more like when you're if you can't sail or get on the boat because of weather and you're stuck in a marina like i had i went on a holiday with my uncle a couple of years ago yeah the whole point was oh my god i'm so excited like i get to see like an island in greece yeah from a boat i remember you calling me an eos yes and you were like yeah so basically what happened was we got there so exciting how great but then we were stuck in the marina yeah and we couldn't so you're in almost like the port where people get off the ferry it's almost like by the public toilets yeah yeah and you don't get to see anything cool it's like yeah but it's it's very like yeah no i it was beautiful it was beautiful holiday and i'm very very lucky i'm very thankful we realized that it's like very very lucky and privileged to be oh to have family because they have boats and friends like yeah yeah it is 100 it would be a life goal of mine to be able to one day even if it was just for a month rent a boat and just have nothing to do but sail around.

4:16Vic: I think that's the way to go, like renting it. Renting one is so much better than owning. Although it is so expensive. I think I prefer to have a really incredible beach house that create memories with family and kids. You know, like if I think of my childhood, it was like we went to my grandma's in Fitianga and we're in the Coromandel of New Zealand and the memories that we have there because you go there every summer, you know, and it's like quite beautiful. If we had kids and you were like, you know, thinking about family holidays or summer holidays with kids. Yeah. There's something so special about going back to the same place and having it be your family place where you all think, you know, the memories that you think about with that place are like quite beautiful.

4:59But then at the same time, firstly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford a PGRs. And secondly, I kind of love the idea of being able to mix it up.

5:07Vic: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we have the first Curve Fund update. Oh my God, this is really exciting. So this is to the end of August and really, really excited. We've had a few good months with the fund. Okay, let's pause for one moment for anyone that's like, what's the fund? What's going on? So we have launched the Curve Fund. Yes. Which is like pipe dream and Vic is managing the money. So what we're going to go through today is what are some of the investments that have been made? How is it going? What are the returns looking like? And, yeah, for anyone that's interested in finding out more about the curve investments and, yeah, basically what we invest in, we'll put the link in the podcast show notes for you to have a little look.

5:51So from when we launched on the 1st of August, it's up 2 % this month. So what does that mean comparatively to what's happening in the rest of the market?

6:00Vic: So it is ahead of the S &P 500, which is great. Stunning work. And we had some really big movers this month. So fun. This is so fun. The first one being Estee Lauder. Okay. Yeah. So we have kind of three buckets of the fund. And the first one's being like female-led or a company that targets female customers, that is like female-originated, you know, some kind of female angle. then we've got founder-led, which is any company that has been created by a founder or has a CEO in there that's got really significant skin in the game, for example. So this would be having quite a decent shareholding. I guess the whole reason, and we've spoken about this for years and years and years, the whole reason that you want to invest ideally in companies that have founders, like the people who started the business are still leading the business, so much of their wealth is tied up.

6:55So it's in their best interest to make decisions for like the long-term success of a business. In the same way though, you can actually incentivize CEOs that have a huge amount of equity because then they've personally also got a lot of stake.

7:10Vic: Which we're going to get into in a bit with Apple. And then the other bucket is future focus. So, you know, we've been listening to our community for many, many years and they, you want to invest in the future you want to see. You want to support companies. When you invest in them, you are buying a share of that business. You are giving it a tick of approval to say, look, take my money. I want you to be bigger and better in the future. So that's kind of that bucket. So Estee Lauder comes into the female bucket. It was up 20 % this month, and it was one of our largest positions, which was awesome.

7:38And so just explaining largest position. So inside the fund, we have lots of different investments. Yeah, there's about 30 different investments. Is Estee Lauder one of the largest of all? Yes. So because the share price is up 20 % and we have quite a decent amount of the fund is invested in it, that's why we saw… Such a good month. Yeah. If you had all the positions up 20%, it would be fantastic.

8:05Vic: But that's why you hold so many positions because some will have really great months. Some will have really great years. Some won't have great months. And so that's why you want to hold a diversified number of companies across different industries, different countries, different sizes, all of that. And this was the best month this company has had in 25 years, which is all to do with this kind of turnaround strategy that they've been implementing. So they have had years and years of declining sales and the share price has gone down, down, down, down, down. Because if you zoom out and look at what we've spoken about a lot on this podcast, which is all of the different influencer skincare brands that have come out.

8:48Back in the day, Estee Lauder was the, or one of, the go-to beauty brands. And there's so many competitors now.

8:56Vic: Totally. And look, we also talk about health and wellness being like such a big category. People wanting to extend their lives in that kind of 20 to 40-year-old age bracket. You know, staying youthful. All of that. and that plays right into the hands of the skincare industry, the beauty industry, and Estee Lauder being one of the biggest in the industry. It naturally lends itself to this company doing well. But you have to have the right brands. You have to have the right cost base. You have to have the right structure. And this company, Estee Lauder, owns over 20 brands. Would you say this is a beauty version of Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy, in the sense that they've diversified with lots of different brands?

9:36Vic: Yeah. Well, just like we're saying, you want a diversified portfolio of investments. It's like this company has a diversified portfolio of brands that target different ages, different price points, you know, different products in terms of perfume and beauty. Like there's so many, yeah, different groups that they can target, which helps them do well. And yeah, they own La Mer, Clinique, Joe Malone, Tom Ford, Labo, Mac, Bobby Brown, like so many different brands. and they've had this big restructure going on which has cut costs, they've cut staff and it's really driven their margin which is when your profit grows faster than your revenue.

10:19Vic: Also China has been a big kind of tough spot for the business. And why is that? Post-COVID, Chinese not spending on luxury brands, they've kind of been caught up in that space which has hit all the luxury space and then that's now started to improve so yeah it's the stocks fall in about 70 percent over the last five years so we've got to put it in context this is like a rebound but off like a very low kind of base but this is why we this is why we bought the bought the stock this is why we own it it's for this turnaround strategy and it's in that kind of health and wellness space which you really like so yeah it's so fun yeah i also think when you just see estee lauder it does all All you think of is Estee Lauder, right?

11:02Vic: Yeah. But I love Lilavo. Yeah. I love Bobbi Brown. I love Jo Malone. There's so many brands in there. Yeah. Like what amazing skincare. Totally. Yeah. I feel like this would be the most iconic brand to be bought out by if you were building a skincare brand. Yes. Yeah. We're going to talk about more about the skincare space because it is booming. Booming. We also had Spotify in there, which did really, really well. This is a founder-led business in the founder kind of category. They came out with a really good result during August, and they had had some incredible subscriber growth, up 12%. So they've now got nearly 800 million users.

11:41Vic: Like, I just, wow, that is insane. 800 million and premium, so that's the paying subscribers, is 300 million people. The users in general being up 12%, that's just for the quarter, though, isn't it? Yes, yeah. So when a company gives its results, it's for that quarter. So to have gone up 12 % on an already enormous base is crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, we've spoken about this before, but all around how they're tagging AI content now, etc. In August, there was a lot of tech companies that actually didn't do well. Google was one of them. And unfortunately, that was one of our large positions as well.

12:17Vic: It is only a month. So I still think Google is incredible and will be a core holding for a long time. But Spotify kind of got a bit caught up in that. How? the last few months not in August but like you know it's kind of hasn't done well for the last wee while and so now this like optimism in August around the AI tagging of the content and they've signed a few new licensing deals so there is some I guess more positive news as like the as like a lot of the tech companies weren't doing well Spotify had this positive news which helped it separate from the pack i guess a bit yeah what has the stock done in in august yeah i remember spotify we were talking about it all the time for ages and it's gone kind of quiet so it's down 20 in the last 12 months so it fell you know if we're going back from like this time last year it fell all the way to like may june and then kind of started it just started taking off and kind of recovering in August.

13:26Great time to invest.

13:27Vic: Yeah. Well, this is the thing with this company and Netflix. They're the ones that when they get sold off or when their returns aren't great for a certain period, they're the ones that excite me to look at because I'm like, A, what am I missing that everyone else is the reason that it's falling? What am I missing? but also if nothing's changed and this is a short-term correction or a short-term issue then like cool let's buy some more because this fund is a minimum five years investment time frame right yes we're talking about a month performance but we're looking at the long term and so if you can you know add to your positions or buy new stocks at lower prices that's that's great like let's do it like if the business isn't broken let's add to the position because then when it does recover then we get that like double double whammy essentially and it's kind of like when we say just keep dollar cost averaging you know just keep investing keep investing so that you get if you're investing in the stock market in general and the s &p 500 or investing in a certain stock you start you get to purchase that company at those lower prices so therefore when it does recover you've bought more at those lower prices because your dollar goes further if that makes sense yeah yeah i mean it's the psychology of how we all do the total opposite of that yeah and if you can just almost have some kind of mantra that is the opposite we've got to follow warren buffett yeah you don't want to be buying when everyone else is buying it's just not yeah it's not the way to do it but at the same time that's also why if you feel as though your emotional reaction yeah to what's happening with a stock or with performance try and tap out because if you're investing for a long period of time you don't need to be let me do it for you try to not because otherwise you're just not going to invest and and i don't know i feel like when all of the stocks went down and we had that massive dip around covid i wish i knew more about investing at that time because i would have been a greedy little the last thing you should be doing is pulling the money out when it's like and the thing that i love about the care fund and i love to see is that people have been listening to us.

15:35Vic: We have 70 % of the investors in the fund with recurring investments, which I am just like, hallelujah. Like that is exactly what we're talking about right now is if you can just invest consistently and regularly. Let me do like getting the best return for you. Like that's what my job is. Your job is to just keep investing consistently and regularly. You actually don't have, you have to make one decision. Yeah. And it is, okay, I'm going to trust Vic to do the investments and then I set up my auto payment and that's literally it. Sit back, put your feet up, go do something better with your time.

16:08Vic: Yes, but honestly, when I saw that 70 % had invested with regular investments attached, so that's like monthly auto payments. Paying for rent but paying for your investments. I was like, they've listened. It's also like, obviously this is a good month and it's up 2%, but I don't think anyone, particularly that 70%, who obviously listen to the podcast and really understand the concept of things go up and down. If we had a month where it was down 15%, I would say majority of curve investors would be like, oh, a bad month. They're not going to be panicking because they know that this happens. Well, that's the big caveat as well.

16:49Vic: Like we are talking about one month performance here and like there will be times we'll update you where it hasn't done well. Like I'm not going to gloss over that. It's like it's a long-term game here. But that's just investing. Totally. And honestly, if the fund was down 15 % in a month, which, Jesus, I'd probably have a heart attack. Don't say that because that's the thing, right? It's like it could happen. And that's actually not the end of the world. No. I mean, you've had your personal investments down way more than that before. Yes. And you know that that's just true. But what I'm saying is I would be investing so much more.

17:21Vic: I mean, I don't really have much. All my money's in this fund. But, you know, like if I saw – it's changing your psychology of like when you see a stock down or when you see something that the market's sold off or the fund is down, like you should be doing the opposite of what you think you should be doing. Do you know what I mean? And it's really hard psychologically and I've had to train myself over the years. We have an exciting new investment in the fund. Yes. Yep. We had an investment called AMD, which is the number two player behind NVIDIA. NVIDIA. Don't always say it wrong. Yeah. Gosh, send me that link of that.

17:55Vic: Eloquency. What is it? Eloquency. I think it's, what is the word I'm looking for? No, no. It's NVIDIA. Yes. NVIDIA. Yes. And this comes into the female bucket. So this is run, this company has a female CEO. Her name is Lisa Su. And she is Jin Sen Huang's cousin, actually, who is the CEO and founder of NVIDIA. So they're NVIDIA. NVIDIA. oh my god in video so they are related which is so cool i imagine imagine their christmas you know their christmases you'd be like oh we've got a very very very successful child another very successful child and then another cousin another cousin that's up to shit all you'd be like oh yeah i mean it'd be very cool if it was brother and sister i know you know there's something also imagine the rivalry i'd be like gotta get to number one got to get to number one yes but anyway she has been in that role as CEO for over a decade she's got meaningful equity tied up in the business both OpenAI and Anthropic have actually invested in AMD and so weird how many businesses are investing in other businesses that are listed this is so new I think and I genuinely think that's probably what will be the downfall of the market at some point one of them's gonna screw up some of them has found out they have and everyone's gonna get it yeah i don't know how i don't know when we're just navigating like the information we have at hand and all that but i just think we've never ever seen companies with this much wealth and value and of this size all embedded with one another and so it's kind of fun I know I shouldn't be excited by this, but the drama, if that happens, will be hilarious to watch.

19:45Vic: Yeah. So NVIDIA is 11 times larger in terms of market share than AMD. But my thinking with AMD is you've got a massive, massive company in NVIDIA. There is more opportunity and probability of the number two taking share from the number one than the number one continuing to take market share from an already, like, outsized position of market share that it has. Does that make sense? It's backing the underdog. Yeah. It's much easier to double off smaller numbers than it is doubling off bigger numbers, all of that. They're both great businesses. Can we just explain what AMD actually does? Sorry, yes.

20:26Vic: So it is a semiconductor company. So exactly the same as NVIDIA in that it provides the semiconductor chips, which power the entire kind of AI industry. Yeah, it's basically the infrastructure that AI needs to even function. And is there anything else about this business? I mean, it's amazing that it's... It's got over$10 billion in cash as well, which I really like. Yeah. Yeah. Anything falls to, you know, if anything falls, I don't know, something scary happens, they've got a serious emergency fund. A hundred percent, yeah. Which also means they can invest in new and exciting products and, yeah.

21:01The more that I think about this emergency fund concept and just generally our own personal finances compared to businesses, it's quite similar really. If you think about what you need to be able to survive for three or six months, if you lost your job, if you had to pay for all your things. To a point, I think.

21:21Vic: I think this is actually a really good point because I think, yes, having enough in your emergency fund, you don't want all your life savings in an emergency fund, though, because of the return that you get. And it's the same with businesses, right? You don't want a company to be sitting on loads and loads and loads of cash. You want it to be using it to grow. But you're right. Just like in our own personal situation, you want to have a little buffer for a rainy day, but not too much that it's actually impacting growth, whether it's you individually in your own investments or a business. So it's finding that right balance.

21:52So your point is you always have to look at what is the money they have in cash in comparison to how they run the business, how much money they need to survive if something went wrong, etc. Yeah. Also, again, that's a really good example of you don't need, unless you're really deep in the numbers and really looking at the research within a company, like how many people are really going to want to spend time looking at the amount of money a business has in cash and then compare it to all of their spendings and everything else going, you know, that's a fixed job. So the fact that you feel comfortable with the amount of money that is in cash for them, for you, you're like, that's a positive.

22:27It's not an alarming amount of money. Yeah. I'm really excited to talk about Apple.

22:31Vic: Apple. Because I have seen the flip phone everywhere. I think that's a have. I know it's a fake flip phone. Yeah. But I had this moment where I thought that would be genius to bring back a flip. Don't you think? There's this really genius content creator that I follow and she's an OnlyFans creator. And she just does such clever stuff. All the time I watch her videos on Instagram, not on OnlyFans. And I think you're genius at marketing. But one of the things she did was the iPhone 8. Yeah. And she was opening like a flip phone, basically. Because Samsung are doing the same thing. They've got flip phones back now where you can't see the crease in the middle.

23:11Yeah. I just wonder if they can.

23:13Vic: Samsung's had them for a while, I think. And it's like, I do, I don't know. I do feel like whenever a new iPhone comes out from Apple, everyone's like, oh my God, the camera's small. Oh, it's too big. But then 99 % of the world has one, you know, like it's kind of. not be a sheet you're going to be they could come out with a round phone and people would be like oh my god amazing you know but i think that's why this is a really interesting update and what's going on at apple because when you have ceos that have delivered amazing products that people do jump on even if initially they're a bit icked out by it's a really good well i guess it's a risk every time you bring someone new in to lead a company because yes that has been how we've all responded to new iphones up until now but yeah it doesn't mean it's going to continue forever The majority of new CEOs that come in, there is usually a restructure or a period of performance where they kind of rebase expectations.

24:08Vic: You know, like they're like, right, this is what my restructuring plan is or this is what my growth plan is. And there's a period afterwards where it's like the stock doesn't really do very well. Investors are a bit nervous. They're like, are you going to strip out heaps of costs or chains? It's the new person to the party that you haven't met before. and you're just sussing them in the corner for a minute. And it's just – We're actually hopefully being polite and saying hi and giving them a hug, but you know. But it's like the new popular girl. She's going to fuck off a few people, but in the end she's going to be the most popular.

24:39Vic: Do you know? It's the girl in Mean Girls that Lindsay Lohan plays. Oh, yeah. What's her name in the show? Katie. Katie Herring. Katie Herring. It's like the new CEO is like Katie Herring. Yeah. Where you're a bit like – And you know, she's from Africa. I heard that she blah, blah, blah. That's what's happening right now. I love your bracelet. She's like, so mean. What an iconic film. I know. So there's a new CEO is why we're talking about this. Yes. Apple last week got a new CEO. This is the seventh CEO Apple has had in 50 years. It's not a lot. If you think about the prime ministers we've had here in the freaking UK.

25:19It's like how many prime ministers have had in the last month. I know.

25:22Vic: Yeah, exactly. 50 years. That is incredible. What an absolute honor. I feel like that is the kind of business I want to invest in. A business that gets really great talent, that stays there for a long time, does incredibly well. And there isn't this constant turnover of like, right, I'm in here for a couple of years. I want to, you know, they're long-term thinkers. If you've got, had seven CEOs in 50 years, every one of those CEOs is, I mean, some of them have been quite short. But you've had Steve Jobs, which was there for 14 years. The last CEO, Tim Cook, who's just left, 15 years. Like, wild.

26:00Vic: Anyway, this new CEO, John Ternus, been announced that he has received a pay package of nearly$60 million for this first year of his tenure as CEO. I'm just trying to think what he would be spending that on. I'm just thinking of the negotiation. Do you go in going, I want 65? And they're like, no, no, we'll give you 60. You know, like, how do you... Wait, how does three million make a difference? But yes, Tim Cook, the outgoing CEO. So he's going to be executive chairman, which means that he is the chairman of the board. And he is going to get nearly 50 million for being in that role. Dream. I'd be wanting to do what he's doing.

26:39Vic: And also, like, when you're on a board, you have a few meetings a year. You know, like, there's... You're not in there all day, every day. Dial me in from the Greek islands. I know. That's the dream. So that's 100 million a year, just on those two people that Apple is spending. which is crazy. But if we looked at John Turnus' salary. Why are we struggling so much at this point? I know, with name. John Turnus. John Turnus. John, John, John. JT. Oh, I love it. Yeah. About 95 % of that is stock compensation. So he's only getting a$3 million salary and the rest is all stock-based. So he's not spending$60 million a year.

27:15Me being like, what's he going to bunch it? What's he spent? So he only has his, no, he has$3 million a year.

27:21Vic: Yeah. And then the rest is a combination of short-term stock incentives, long-term stock incentives. But if we looked at the last CEO, Tim Cook, he took Apple from a market cap of$350 billion to nearly$5 trillion in that 15 years. So he added nearly$4 trillion, which is more than any CEO in history. So if you had stock-based compensation, which he did, the payout would be insane because the share price has gone up so much and that's what you get paid out on. I mean, that is just like the best example of having skin in the game and why someone is so incentivized. Oh my goodness. Gosh, yes. Also, holy shit.

28:05How long was Tim Cook in for?

28:08Vic: 15 years. So only in 15 years he had that much value. Talk about the insane shoes you have to fill. I would not be wanting to be JT. Like even Steve Jobs, SJ. I love it. I will say, JT, fine. And then when I went to Tim Cook, I was like, TC, JT, it's getting a bit good. Yeah, yeah. But SJ is quite good. SJ. Someone tried to call me SJ at school. They tried to make that happen. Because Sophie Jane. Yeah. I was not up to it. I like Corridor Left. That's a favourite.

28:39The most dad joke ever. Who said it? I think it was your boyfriend.

28:45Vic: That's right. Oh, my God. And I didn't get it for ages. The whole right corridor left. Although, actually, it was my ex-boyfriend. That's right. Who came up with it. I thought he was the funniest guy in the world. I didn't get it for ages. And then I was like, oh. And then I absolutely lost it. It's so outrageous. But even SJ took Apple from$2 billion to$3 billion. It then went. It was nearly insolvent at that point. And he took that from about$3 billion to$350 billion. and that was all driven by the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. Just a couple of casual products he brought out. The biggest and most famous corporate turnaround in history, like taking Apple, which was nearly bankrupt, and that's why he kind of got brought back in as CEO because he got ousted.

29:27I totally forget that they nearly went bankrupt. He's done unbelievable things with Apple.

29:33Vic: Yeah, totally. I feel like Steve Jobs did the hard work in getting it off the ground and bringing it back from bankruptcy and stuff. And Tim Cook, he had the products, He had the product base that Steve Jobs built and then he took it to the next level with like the services part of Apple. So if you'd invested under Steve Jobs, if you'd invested$1 ,000, that would have turned into$90 ,000 or$10 ,000 would have been nearly a million. Like it's insane, the Apple story. But we just said it was nearly on the brink of bankruptcy. It is so hard to hold your investments in these companies through thick and thin when the majority of the wealth created is kind of in the later years of its life.

30:18Vic: It's so hard to carry through. But also, it's an interesting investment because in general, it's almost the opposite of AMD. It's not exactly the bottom of the pack or second behind anyone. so what were the reasons or feelings around actually choosing this as an investment that you still think has a lot of i i think the consistent delivery of performance that apple has had the strong brand i would put it close close to microsoft for me oh yeah it's it's huge it's just stood the test of time warren buffett invests in it like you know so you think apple is more of a consistent deliverer at this point.

31:01It's just got so much track record

31:04Vic: that you just would back whatever it would do, basically. And look, there is nervousness around a new CEO, but I just think it's such an incredible brand that I think will be around for many minutes. It's pivoted. It's had so many different versions of its life and it's still stood the test of time. I would love iCloud to be free. I am spending a fortune on storage right now. Well, that's why the share price has gone up 2 ,200 % under Tim Cook's leadership. Guys, that's why you invest in what you use. And also after moving from Apple to Microsoft. Oh, true. I have a new love for Apple. I'm like everything just talks to each other and it is – You don't understand.

31:49I do because you have to pay me so much money to use that stupid thing.

31:53Vic: doesn't work how frustrating it like apple just worked being able to copy on your phone and paste on your laptop yeah oh my goodness like little things like that light up my light up my life and i can't do that anymore i'm so sorry if jt could just like sit down with satya from microsoft the ceo and just just like each other yeah maybe just buy each other merge yeah so that vic's life could be yeah yeah it's a good idea and there'd be no like competition issues at all i'm sure that would get past any government, any country. No conglomerate issues with having too much market share. No, no worries.

32:30Oh my God, listen to me making proper stock market jokes.

32:36Vic: Coming up after the break, we are going to dive into the cost of natural disasters. I know we've spoken about this, but this is super relevant and we speak about how what you see on the TV screen, on the news is actually impacting you. In your pocket. In your pocket, your investments, and all of the above. But first, we've got a quick word from today's sponsor. A recent study, Mindful Money Did, found that 50 % of New Zealand investors are worried about greenwashing. And honestly, I get it. It's really hard to know what to trust these days. And that's why we've partnered with Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan, because they make ethical investing understandable and accessible.

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33:37Vic: A product disclosure statement is available at pathfinder.kiwi. I can't believe we're about to have another conversation about the weather and just before anyone turns out, we're not talking about the weather weather. I think this is going to become one of the things that we have to bring up a lot in the next couple of years. And it makes me really worried. I agree. And I think, yes, we talk about it a lot, but we only talk about stuff that is happening in the world that is relevant, that needs to be talked about. And I remember last week and I was looking on TikTok and I saw this image of this flood in Tibet and Nepal.

34:15Vic: And I honestly thought it was AI. Like the fact that this wall of water had like decimated this entire village and it was so, so catastrophic that I genuinely thought it was AI. And I hate that that was my first thought. It is confusing though. There's a lot of content now that's AI. Totally. I find myself thinking the same thing. My first response is, is this baby singing real or not? Well, you want, you also, when you see such a disaster like that, you want it to be almost AI. You don't want it to be real. And then, sorry, these headlines that have come out saying it's like we've had the hottest summer ever on record in the UK.

34:53Vic: And I just seeing all these extreme weather events and that all this impact of climate change, I'm just like, this has to be impacting us financially. and it is actually costing the world$450 billion because of natural catastrophes. And that is a cost that if we just managed to cool the world a little bit faster, we wouldn't be spending. And that dollar value, where do you think that comes from? Because only 38 % of that is covered by insurance. So there's nearly$300 billion of that that's not. And where do you think that comes from? Who pays for that? Taxes. Yeah, which is us. Us. I'm quite alarmed and scared that insurance is increasingly not going to exist because I don't know how, if that number continues to grow, there's going to be so many people, houses, entire areas that are just not going to be insurable because they won't be able to pay out if the inevitable happens.

36:06Vic: Yeah. And that's in a typical year, let alone like, you know, an extra hot year or a extra cold year. And also the deaths that are related to, you know, England recorded twice as many heat-related deaths in May and June than it did last year. So it's like there is loss of life as well as increased costs to service the impacts that we're seeing of climate change. And, yes, you're right. Insurance can go up and up and up and up and up. But if you're looking at purchasing a house, let's say you're looking at purchasing a half a million dollar house, yet it's going to cost$100 ,000,$200 ,000 to insure that.

36:46Vic: Your decision making around purchasing that house, considering where it is or what street or is it by flood zone, all of that, you're going to seriously walk away and be like, actually, it's not worth it. What are some other everyday financial decisions outside of buying a house that are going to potentially price people out because of this? Because that's such a good example. And, you know, until I bought my first house, I didn't even think about insurance as being a huge part of what I needed to factor into my budget. I guess in my head, I almost thought maybe the insurance companies wouldn't be able to exist or like be there anymore.

37:22But actually what's going to happen is the price to insure is just going to go up to cover that, which means so many people are going to be, yeah, the ones that actually genuinely terrifyingly affected by these things because they just can't afford insurance. But also you can't buy a house with insurance, so I guess.

37:39Vic: Well, yeah, you can't get a mortgage without having insurance, which is fair enough. They're lending against this property that if it's not insured, like they're not going to get their money back. But there's like this protection gap where it's like, okay, insurance companies will insure for X percent or, you know, it's a combination of the premiums will go up or what they will insure will go down. You know, they might just be like, actually, not this street or not this region, no coastal properties. You know, they might be like, absolutely, we're not going to do that. Or we're going to charge like three times the price or whatever.

38:12Vic: But there is a gap of what they will insure and what the government has to fit the bill off. Because when we see all these natural disasters, someone has to pay for the rebuild. And if it's not the insurers, it's going to be the government. And you're right, the government then, where do they get their money from? It's from increased taxes. So at the end of the day... Oh my God, shit, this is not good. We either pay higher premiums or if stuff's not insurable, we pay higher taxes because the government has to fork out the rebuild. So it's like either way, we end up paying for the cost of climate change.

38:48Vic: It's so scary. The most concerning thing is that when money is tight, insurance is the easiest thing to cancel. And it is one of the worst things to be without. If you are feeling the pinch and you're like, oh God, there's like a couple of thousand, a quarter of a year going out for my house insurance. I'm just going to cancel that. or go to a lower level of protection so that I can afford, then it's like that's when disaster happens. And that's exactly what happened with all the Malibu fires in the US. There was a lot of them were uninsurable before the fires because they were on coastal because there were so many reasons.

39:29Vic: And then the fires came through, whipped through that, and it was like, gosh, now these people have absolutely nothing. I hear what you're saying about people looking at their cost base and thinking insurance just has to go because we can't afford it. When people are so, so incredibly stretched and obviously things like food and shelter and the basic human needs need to come first, but I do think that we need to think about insurance as an essential. Totally. Like in 2025, there's$100 billion in losses from people needing to be paid out by insurance. Yeah. You might think$200,$300 a month on insurance is not manageable.

40:07Can you imagine being part of that statistic and having to pay for it? I think it has to be a mindset shift. How can I afford insurance? And if you aren't sure where to start, we have some amazing insurance advisors, which we can link in the podcast show notes. Go to them. Speak to them. There's no fee to talk to them. Figure out how to prioritize what you should have insured. and you know if you can only do three of those it's better than doing none 100 and they'll talk you through the different levels of coverage and everything they're totally impartial as well it's not a business it's rmp insurance and they're friends of ours they're amazing they've worked with so many people in the curb community so if you want to have a chat with them you know you don't have to pay to speak to them and it might just give you the peace of mind to know that

40:49Vic: you're insured in the right places yeah definitely and it's also for those that do have insurance like make sure you check your insurance policy because sometimes there's exclusions like it might be like we actually don't cover for floods or we actually don't cover for landslides or something and you think you are covered so chuck it in Claude and be like if this happened would would I be covered and for what amount and also like the cost of rebuilding your house goes up massively year on year on year particularly in New Zealand so it's really important to make sure that your coverage is aligned with that so that if you did need to rebuild it's not on like prices from five years ago and therefore you can only rebuild one room instead of four I cannot stress enough like how important it is to have insurance like take my learning I was like I'm not going to get pet insurance I'm just going to build up my own pool of money and then if I don't have to spend it on my dog I've got that money on the side and I was about one month into contributing to it and Mesa had a full blown vet hospitalization.

41:55Vic: It was, I had about a hundred pounds in there and it cost me about 3000 pounds. So I cannot stress enough, get insurance.

42:08Okay, we have a community question. Woohoo! Yeah, we love these. She says, hey team, I'm fairly new to listening to the pod and absolutely loving it. Thanks, welcome, great to have you here. Welcome. I'm not sure if you've covered this or not, but how do you invest when you're in the UK or when you're in New Zealand? I used to use Tiger Brokers to invest when I was in New Zealand. Now that I've relocated to the UK, it's a bit tricky investing through a platform as I need to use my New Zealand bank. Are you guys investing using multiple platforms or sending money back to New Zealand banks and then using the likes of Sharesies or investing in the curve fund?

42:42We'd love to hear how you guys are investing logistically, if that's something that you can share on the pod.

42:47Vic: I have an account with Trading212 over here, which I do a small amount of UK investments, but that's only because platforms like SharesEase, you can't invest in UK stocks, and I wanted to. But the bulk of my money was still in New Zealand and in New Zealand dollars and SharesEase and funds in New Zealand, and now all my New Zealand money is in the Curve Fund. Did you consider, though, what that meant from an exchange rate standpoint, if you were sending money from the UK to New Zealand to then invest there? no you didn't mind no you just wanted it all in one place yeah I was thinking where will I end up long term and I was like I understood the New Zealand funds management trading platform landscape much better you still have to pay the exchange rate when you invest through platforms like Sharesies if you invest in US dollar companies you know if you're investing in Apple on Sharesies you still have to convert your money to US dollars so you're always going to be impacted by an exchange rate unfortunately being New Zealand New Zealand a lot of the companies that you want to invest in are probably non-New Zealand dollar companies you know they're US companies they're maybe Australian companies so you're always going to have to have weather the effects I know but it's like weathering two effects going from pounds to New Zealand dollars and then New Zealand dollars to US dollars or but then the I guess yeah the return on that as well you've got to think about like with investing in funds in New Zealand they are so tax efficient I guess the thing with the UK you don't have if you're using a um an ISA which you all should be for your first 20 ,000 pounds you're investing you don't pay tax so there is a massive benefit there also when you're investing in funds in New Zealand they're a certain structure where they're really tax efficient anyway so it's so meaningless in what in the overall scheme of things in terms of the effects impact for me personally that i'm just like if i get too bogged down with like oh but i'm spending this you know it's just like i'm not going to do anything i'd rather just get it invested you can get like decision or analysis paralysis and actually whatever is easiest for you that's going to mean you're consistently doing it go for it if you've already got money in sharesies you already set up on sharesies yeah just contribute there if you're like actually i want to diversify and i want to invest in both uk and new zealand then yeah set for Trading 212.

45:09Vic: They're great. There's also Plum over here. There's, what are some of the other platforms? There's eToro. There's quite a few different trading platforms. I also use Trading 212 over here because I just find it much easier.

45:24So I was going on a little holiday. I feel like I've talked about my holiday in the same way our darling Lucy, social media manager, has talked about her birthday.

45:32Vic: You know, it's had a leader. Yeah, yeah. It's had a leader. Everyone's aware of it. I'm going to your favourite Greek island Idra I need to send me your hacks or like what to do it's so tiny it's kind of like if I was like make sure you go to these restaurants it's like there's nowhere else to go really yeah it's what I love about it it's like so quaint for me it felt like Mamma Mia or it felt like the sisterhood of the travelling pants you know where Lena arrives in the little Greek island she gets on the donkey and gets to her I mean you could yeah Is that a real niche reference? Not sure if anyone remembers that.

46:07Please take a picture if you do. Yeah. But have a great week, everyone. If you've got any community questions, any curveballs, anything you want us to answer, either you can comment where you listen to this podcast. You can send us a DM on socials. Also, a quick reminder, if you don't already, please follow the show. That means that every time we drop an episode, you get notified.

46:26Vic: And you don't want to miss out. Yeah, yeah. God, no. Absolutely not. Because the one you might miss out on, we might be really juicy. Yeah, yeah. Probably will be. I love when you do your sort of rich, snobby voice. That's so good. Okay, have a great week, everyone. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to The Curve Weekly. Make sure you hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening so you're always up to date with the latest finance and investing news. And feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought about this episode because we would love your feedback.

46:52We've got new Curve Weekly episodes for you to listen to every Monday. But until then, listen to Erasing the Curve. These are our in-depth podcast episodes

47:00Vic: where we chat about all things money. We're also around all week on socials if you're hungry for more Curve content and all the links are in this podcast show notes. We hope you have a great week and we'll catch you for the next episode of The Curve Weekly on Monday.

47:18Okay, quickly, The Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing, but we are not financial advisors.

47:24Vic: Our platform exists for educational purposes only and it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. and always remember to do your own research before making any investment or financial decision we're here for any knowledge and support you need but the final call is always yours and thanks for being here you got this yeah we know you got this