One of the best videos on Youtube is called the marshmallow test. If you have not seen this yet, do that immediately. They give the kids the option of eating a marshmallow now or waiting a few minutes and receiving a second marshmallow. The kids sit there in sheer agony counting the seconds until she …
What is risk identification? When you invest in assets there is always the chance that things can go wrong. It is necessary for us to know what the potential risk associated with each asset class is. This allows us to analyse and mostly mitigate the risk. This is called risk identification and management. There are …
I had a conversation this week about the performance of Unit Trusts (UTs) in South Africa and how it is unfathomable that Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) could outperform UTs. UTs are actively managed, obviously they should have superior performance over an investment vehicle that simply buys and holds indices. Still, the latest (December 2018) Standard …
There has been a lot of talk about how lenient capital gains tax in South Africa is. Stealthy Wealth wrote a good article about this, called I love capital gains tax. If you must pay tax, pay capital gains tax. There exists an option to reduce the tax payable on your equity investments even further …
I’ve wanted to do an Easy Equities review for a while now since they won the Intellidex Top Stockbroker award. When I started investing, I knew about Easy Equities and their affordable offering, but I still chose to go with a trading platform offered by a bank. It is strange how the mind works sometimes. …
Last updated 11 June 2019. When we invest money in cash products at a bank, the bank loans 8 to 13 times that amount to other people. This is either as home loans, car loans, business loans or short-term debt, like credit cards. They simply produce this money out of thin air. This is called …
With the end of the financial year approaching fast, it is time to start optimising your income tax. One way of doing this is by investing in Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) that I discussed in the article should I even bother with a TFSA? This option is geared towards the middle to low-income households. High-income …
The only necessary background information you need to have regarding Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) is the TFSA limits. You can contribute R33 000 per year and R500 000 over your lifetime. When people hear these amounts they have one of two reactions, “Where am I supposed to find that kind of money?” or “Why …
I recently read an article which stated that the best indicator for future performance is the Price to Earnings (PE) ratio of a market. I tried finding it again but to no avail. However, the gist of it is that when the PE ratio is low, the return on investment in the near future is …
It is easy to over-complicate your investment strategy. It is tempting to invest in each new Initial Public Offering (IPO) because it feels like you are getting in on the ground floor. On top of that, you do not have to pay the transaction cost for buying the shares. So, because it is new and …
