A New Perspective

Why is Donald Trump such a big fan of tariffs, and what exactly do they accomplish? A tariff is a tax on imported goods ...

Sanlam recently published an article about currency performance and it might be of value to have a look at the results. Very few countries ...

Let us take a moment to celebrate some of the things happening in SA today, starting with the postponement of the budget presentation. At ...

It is very important for investors to develop the right investment mentality. Some people will always tend to be too aggressive and take unnecessary ...

There is something deep within us that wants to stay busy. We want to do something, even if that something doesn’t add any value. ...

We have managed to get through the first month of 2025 with mostly green on our investment screens. In South Africa we see shares ...

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on the 20th of January. There are many people who feel ...

Market performance in 2025 will depend on two things: economic growth and inflation. The dominant player in the investment world is still the USA ...

The year 2024 was an interesting one and in many ways divergent. If we ignore the facts for a moment and just look at ...

A long, long time ago there was a gameshow called “Money or the box”. In this gameshow, contestants had to choose between taking a ...

For money managers like ourselves, it is very frustrating to see people losing money because they are not heeding our advice. It must be ...

Bitcoin is an enigma. Most Baby Boomers thought it would be a shooting star, burning brightly initially but fading away quite rapidly. Most Generation ...

If you are interested in politics, you would have seen all the hype about the US election over the last few months. The polls ...

If anything, 2024 hasn’t been a boring year. We have seen elections taking place all over the world and we have saved the best ...

The elections in the US will take place on November 5, and there is no clear winner at this stage. The difference between the ...

If you have ever wondered what impact government policy can have on your investments, stop wondering and look at China. The Hang Seng index ...

Just last week we talked about the potential impact of lower interest rates on the markets and now, seven days later, we have already ...

We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. The interest rate in the US was lowered by 0.5% last Wednesday and ...

The markets have been gyrating like a Moroccan belly dancer in the casbah. It feels like we are going in circles but we have ...

On a recent trip to the Goegab Nature Reserve outside Springbok, we were sitting outside around our crackling fire. Through the Namaqualand quiver trees ...

If you happened to blink, you would have missed the sharp fall and subsequent spike in equity and bond prices over the past few ...

Can you still remember those times when you did something wrong and your mother said, “Go to your room and wait for your father ...

The S&P 500 fell 2.997% on Monday 5 August, the worst day for the US stock market since September 2022 and 12th daily decline ...

Watching the Olympics is exciting , and so can watching the current market volatility be. One of the biggest companies in the world, Nvidia, ...

We all saw this coming: Joe Biden stepped down and nominated his vice president, Kamala Harris, to contest the presidential election in November. Donald ...

Things have been happening these past few weeks. In Cape town we have seen heavy rains, wind and snow. An assassin’s bullet grazed Donald ...

If you have been wondering why your offshore equity fund is underperforming the S&P500 index, then consider the following explanation: the S&P500 index represents ...

If you have not received a call from Cyril Ramaphosa offering you a cabinet post, then you are one of only a few. It ...

Things had fallen back into uncertainty regarding the GNU as we entered the last weekend of June, but this has now been resolved. The ...

It took a few days, but last week we saw share prices in South Africa shoot up and the rand strengthen to below R18/$. ...

When Warren Buffett went shopping as a young man, he would always take out the dollar he was about to spend and look at ...

What would you advise yourself if you had one opportunity to go back 30 years? One thing is for sure, you will be very ...

The day after the much anticipated elections we woke up to a gloomy, rainy day. Voting day was marred by various problems relating to ...

In the absence of big problems, we tend to imagine our small problems are big. We are at a possible inflection point in our ...

If you are a regular watcher of the business channels on TV, such as CNBC or Bloomberg, you will notice how the market commentators ...

It is May and the JSE is where it started the year and so is the rand against the dollar. The latest development in ...

Anglo American, one of our most beloved South African companies, is up for sale. BHP Billiton made an offer to buy Anglo American, but ...

One of the questions we are most frequently asked by clients is whether now is a good time to convert their rands into dollars ...

Before investing offshore, you have to decide whether you want to invest directly offshore by using your discretionary tax allowance, or whether you want ...

We all know by now that different asset classes provide different benefits at different times. If we look at the accompanying graph, we can ...

Looking back at the first three months of 2024, we see South African shares as well as shares listed in Hong Kong still trading ...

Most of us start our relationship with interest rates when we decide to take out a bond to buy property. When we go to ...

On Wednesday last week our minister of finance stood up and told us all about our national budget. It is a speech about how ...

Things are returning to normal in our daily routines. We are back at the office, children are back at school, politicians are slinging mud ...

It is almost time to close off the 2024 tax year which will be on 29 February. Anything tax-related has to be finalized before ...

When we talk about investments, we try to separate facts from emotion. We look at the returns, the risks, the opportunities and the valuations. ...

We can almost say goodbye to January. It has been a smooth transition from 2023 into 2024 and it seems that nothing has changed. ...

Quite often we see negative or at best lacklustre investment returns after a very good year, and good returns after a bad year. This ...

Except for China, most global equity markets closed 2023 in the green (MSCI World +24.4% for 2023). Despite the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, ...

If there was one area of the market you had to invest in during 2023, then it was the Magnificent 7 (M7). Stocks in ...

The world is a board game and we as normal citizens are not making the rules. As we have stated before, we cannot advise ...

On the 14th of November the latest CPI figures were released in the USA, resulting in equity prices shooting through the roof. Bond yields also dropped, resulting in capital gains ...

As another year draws to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on the incredible journey we’ve shared. In the office, this time of year ...

Beste Kliënte en Vriende Die einde van die jaar is in sig en dit is nodig dat ons terugkyk na die verlede wat ons ...

The phrase “batten down the hatches” comes to mind when we think about what might be in store for us in 2024. If we ...

Every year, round about this time, the Minister of Finance gives us feedback as to how the actual figures compare to those budgeted at ...

In a recent Vestact newsletter, reference was made to a study by the Schwab Center for Financial Research which touches on one of the most ...

On 29th of October 2019 Nimsdai Purja, a Nepalese mountain climber, stood at the top of Shishapangma, the 14th highest peak in the world. ...

There are two attention-grabbing wars being fought at the moment, with the Israel/Gaza conflict just over a week old. If we put aside our ...

It feels as if life is more intense now than twenty years ago. There are more people, more traffic, more events and more news. ...

It is sad to see the JSE All Share index back at the level on which it started this year. It is frustrating to ...

If it seems to you that the investment markets have been going nowhere over the past few months, you are absolutely right. The JSE ...

Late one night, on August 15th, 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope in the USA picked up a strong narrowband radio signal on the ...

During the week I read an article by Anchor Capital regarding the tax we pay as South Africans. We all know about the impact ...

It is time to revisit the importance of educating your children in the art of financial literacy. As with most other things in life, ...

In an attempt to head off grey-listing, the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting Terrorism Financing) Amendment Act, 2022, was passed late last year ...

The taxi strike is over without the City of Cape Town having sacrificed the rule of law. On the other hand, Zuma once again ...

On Thursday last week I was on my way back from a meeting when I became part of the less comfortable side of life. ...

We are often told that when you buy a share, or some other investment that invests in shares, you have to just forget about ...

Against the backdrop of the latest positive inflation print (which came in lower than expected), the South African Reserve Bank voted to keep the ...