By Clyde Rossouw and Sumesh Chetty, portfolio managers, Investec Asset Management Over the past few months we have seen markets start to retreat, and the most recent turmoil is a more violent expression of this. While this may come as a surprise to...
Since the relaxation of exchange control, and as the Rand continues its downward slide, many South Africans are investing offshore with important consequences for their estate planning. If you have invested offshore, consider whether you need a...
When it comes to offers of credit, everyone is a target, regardless of where you're positioned on the income scale. Whether you're a CEO of a large corporate, an unskilled labourer, or taking your first step on the corporate ladder, the credit...
If you've been putting off opening a tax-free savings account, here's a trick to help you get going. Last week I completed the herculean task of opening tax-free savings accounts for my kids and myself. I have had the forms ready to fill out since...
Andrew Lester, Chief Marketing officer of Different Life, offers a solution to the problem of unemployment in South Africa “Small business creates jobs” or so the saying goes. The corollary to this statement is that it is big business’s mandate to...
Proposals by National Treasury aim to simplify retirement savings and reduce costs. National Treasury recently released its latest paper on retirement reform entitled Retirement reform: lowering charges and improving market conduct in which it...
By Julie Macleod-Henderson, head of retail investment for Foord Asset Management in KwaZulu-Natal. The term “crystal-ball investing” appropriately invokes images of smoke and mirrors, charlatanism and faux clairvoyance. None of these has any place...
Research continues to show that active management is not delivering on its promise. If you want to invest in the JSE via an investment fund, you have two main options: you can invest with an active fund-management company, usually in the form of a...
By Ryno Oosthuizen, Business Development Manager at Glacier by Sanlam When investing in a unit trust or share portfolio there are generally two types of returns an investor can expect to earn: income and capital growth. Income earned can be...
Open up your bank statement and calculate how much of your monthly salary goes to repaying debt. Imagine if, apart from your mortgage, you had no debt repayments – think of all that money now available for savings. The reality is that we have...
The sectional title segment of the housing market continues to outperform the full title segment, in line with the "smaller is better" theme. But is it about home price affordability, or more about home running cost affordability? John Loos, Household and Property...
There are ways to score without playing the odds. Our family has a game where we write down what we would do with our money if we won the lotto. This is not just a fruitless exercise of “what if” because what it does is show us what is important to us –what our dreams...
When looking at investment opportunities, it isn't always that easy to separate out the sizzle from the steak. What do Bernie Madoff, Barry Tannenbaum and Sharemax have in common? They started as credible organisations run by known people – people who also knew how to...
Auctions are typically associated with property or fine art, however, you can also pick up a good second-hand car at an auction. The first thing you need to know when buying a car on auction is that it is sold “voetstoots”, which means that you buy the item as is....
By Jan van Niekerk, CIO of RECM Investors and market participants have lately been asking us whether value investing is dead. While we firmly believe that value investing is alive and well and we are as committed to it as ever, we have seen some value investors...
If you have an emolument attachment order (garnishee order), contact the Credit Ombud to find out whether or not it is legal. Recently, a landmark ruling raised questions about the legality of many emolument attachment orders (EAOs), commonly known as garnishee...
The developing field of "financial therapy" can help us understand the complex dynamics that inform our financial decision-making. Americans love their psychological analysis approach to life. A cursory look at Amazon’s list of top-selling self-help books shows that...
By Bruce Williamson, Chief Investment Officer at Imara Asset Management South Africa. Bad news around power outages, the rand, public sector shortcomings and the industrial relations climate is drowning out an important message for local investors: South Africa is...
The recently published Morningstar Global Fund Investor Experience 2015 study, which analyses 25 countries that offer investment funds, highlights high fees, poor disclosure levels and advisers’ lack of fiduciary duty as some of the key issues plaguing South Africa’s...
Using your child’s tax-free savings account is not necessarily the best vehicle for their education fund. Since the launch of the tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs) there have been suggestions that this would be an ideal way to save for your child’s education. But is...