It may be prudent to recap what we have experienced in the markets since the start of the year. The graph below indicates the performance of the main South African Asset Classes: Equities, Bonds, Listed Property and Money Market. Two aspects of the performance are notable. The first is the dive which Bond and Listed [...]
The investment landscape has been ROUGH over the past few years. Even though the markets have been characterised by uncertainty returns have been kind. This has been due in large part to the easy monetary policy implemented by the central banks of the developed world. A question which now plagues the minds of investment professionals, [...]
The markets certainly have not been a pleasant destination during June. At the time of writing June has produced the following: Indices Return Global Shares MSCI The World Index USD -4.82% Global Bonds J.P. Morgan Global(USD) -0.03% Listed Property FTSE/JSE Africa SA List Prop (SAPY) J253T -5.66% South African Equities FTSE/JSE Africa All Share J203 [...]
The topic on most investor’s lips is the recent steep depreciation of the Rand. On Monday the 27th of May the Rand was trading at R9.61 to the Dollar and by Friday the 31st of May the Rand touched R 10.28. While these levels against the Dollar were not entirely unexpected it was the severity [...]
US Job Market Since the start of the April 2013 we have witnessed the South African All Share Index lose 3.43%. This dip started when the US job market only added 88 000 new jobs in March after February had a 268 000 payrolls gain. The reaction to this news at the start of April [...]
The practice of investing has two major functions: protecting capital in real terms and growing capital in real terms. The qualification “in real terms” refers to the result after inflation has been taken into account. To continue our discussion let us first define inflation: “The rate at which the general level of prices for goods [...]
Investors will have noticed that markets in the US have reached new heights. The question that should be asked is: “Where are these returns coming from?”. It is of even greater importance when one considers that the South African markets have been very responsive to offshore market directions. At the end of February 2013 the [...]
Unit Trusts are Collective Investment Schemes which serve not only to provide individuals and institutions with exposure to the financial markets but to provide a diversified exposure to the investment universe of each applicable fund. This means that investors are able to invest easily according to their risk appetite by simply choosing a fund manager [...]
After the holiday break we return to find the JSE at record high levels (again!). So what has happened… or rather what has not happened? In our November 23 Blog entry “23 November 2012 – Where do we stand?” we highlighted some of the risks that the markets face in the short to medium term. [...]
The year is drawing to a close and most of us are already on holiday, in spirit if not in person. This is also the time of the year when some of us are fortunate enough to receive an end-of-year bonus or a thirteenth cheque. You may have already decided to allocate this extra capital [...]