The first in a series of monthly profiles of investors around NZ. First up, Lachlan Wallace, vice president of the AUT Investment Club.
When it comes to investing, Lachlan Wallace admits he’s “a bit of a nerd”.
The 19-year-old student says he usually starts his day by reading the market news on CNBC, “just to find out what’s going on around the world.”
He then heads into the Auckland University of Technology, where he studies finance and banking and is also vice president of the AUT Investment Club.
He also works part-time for the Institute of Finance Professionals (INFINZ), and says any spare cash he has after bills goes towards building his investing portfolio, though not before a lot of research.
He says he applies what he’s learnt at AUT, drawing up his own analysis reports on investments he’s interested in, “looking at their returns and judging how the share price will climb,” before deciding whether to invest.
“I do a lot of investing,” he says. “I’m extremely active. I invest every week.”
Not that he was always that way. In fact, Lachlan is relatively new to investing.
“It probably started in my first year at uni, in 2019. Sharesies were doing a lot of advertising on campus and I saw it and thought ‘Hey, I can invest with just a dollar!’ So I decided to jump on board.”
Two years on and his portfolio includes KiwiSaver, shares in three companies, units in two exchange traded funds (ETFs), and “a little bit of forex but nothing serious.”
His investing style is “long-term strategist meets experimentalist”, with a focus on ‘dividend investing’ or ‘yield stocks’, where you buy shares that offer regular dividends, not just capital growth.
And while he’s looked into cryptocurrencies he reckons they’re too risky right now. “I think I’ll wait till they’re better regulated and no longer the Wild West.”
In general, Lachlan says he protects himself from risk “just by doing proper research and making sure I’m quite diversified.”
And his favourite investing quote? This from US billionaire Warren Buffett: “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
“I live by Buffet's quote because it represents the way I am as a person,” Lachlan says. “It’s my thought process on how I choose my actions, and how I make my decisions on the stock market too.”
