Investment advice

supersunbird said:
Negatives sure can happen, in index or managed funds.
Click to expand...

Let me rephrase.

They shouldn’t happen over a five year or longer period.

Short term dips I can understand.

But yes sure if your market entry was at a terrible time I can see it happening especially if it was a lump sum and not a monthly allocation stated from zero.

I didn’t mean to imply that it’s impossible.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Let me rephrase.

They shouldn’t happen over a five year or longer period.

Short term dips I can understand.

But yes sure if your market entry was at a terrible time I can see it happening especially if it was a lump sum and not a monthly allocation stated from zero.

I didn’t mean to imply that it’s impossible.
Click to expand...

I get you
 
I've been looking at Sygnia Itrix MSCI US Index ETF and Sygnia Itrix MSCI World Index ETF on Fundsdata and I was wondering how Fundsdata gives it rankings: The Sygnia US (Regional--Equity--General) has higher returns and a lower ranking while the Sygnia World (Global--Equity--General) has lower returns but a higher ranking.
If the returns are higher shouldn't the ranking be higher, too?
 
sandwitch said:
I've been looking at Sygnia Itrix MSCI US Index ETF and Sygnia Itrix MSCI World Index ETF on Fundsdata and I was wondering how Fundsdata gives it rankings: The Sygnia US (Regional--Equity--General) has higher returns and a lower ranking while the Sygnia World (Global--Equity--General) has lower returns but a higher ranking.
If the returns are higher shouldn't the ranking be higher, too?
Click to expand...

Risk vs Returns
 
sandwitch said:
Thanks SauRoNZA!
Click to expand...

Didn't mean to state it as factually true, but I would imagine that's the difference.

A US only ETF is going to be more risky for being less diversified. If the US$ craps or major interest rate hike etc the whole ETF feels it.

World Index is split across many countries so if the US part suffers you don't notice the rest so much more stable and predictable.
 
Thanks for your questions & answers.

Also had the unpleasant experience of dealing with a "financial advisor."
Realised recently that the only finances he was looking after were his own. Kickbacks & high fees all the way...

Have come to realise that to make this work you have to do it yourself.

Cannot express how grateful I am for this information.
From knowing bugger all, I now have an idea of what to look out for & where to look.

For now, educating myself...

Hopefully will be able to give input at some stage.
 
R10T said:
Thanks for your questions & answers.

Also had the unpleasant experience of dealing with a "financial advisor."
Realised recently that the only finances he was looking after were his own. Kickbacks & high fees all the way...

Have come to realise that to make this work you have to do it yourself.

Cannot express how grateful I am for this information.
From knowing bugger all, I now have an idea of what to look out for & where to look.

For now, educating myself...

Hopefully will be able to give input at some stage.
Click to expand...

Why pay someone money if you can read up, learn and have all the power and dissension making in your hands.

Also ... try invest oversea ! Started an investment 4 months back (its 17% up)

And ps, I also learned the hard way (when big investment firms told me to hit the road after asking heated questions)
 
zerocool2009 said:
Why pay someone money if you can read up, learn and have all the power and dissension making in your hands.

Also ... try invest oversea ! Started an investment 4 months back (its 17% up)

And ps, I also learned the hard way (when big investment firms told me to hit the road after asking heated questions)
Click to expand...

100% but some lessons you need to learn the hard way, I guess.

As to investing overseas, still busy getting my head around what is out there & how it all works.

It's a whole new language to learn, & set of rules, but perseverance will win.
 
I have also had 3 financial advisors who managed to lose my money. One allowed it to dwindle to 70% of the value before he took action, another suggested a fund that would pay 10.5% interest monthly. This lasted 14 months and they went belly up, taking R265 million of investors money. The fund directors each paid themselves R70m and did a duck. Did he do a due-diligence? He refused to answer

All my property investments have been fine. Now and then you get a dodgy tenant but on the whole they have been good. With the property downturn I do not increase the rent beyond 4%

I also have an investment in a Sygnia Euro Fund. This has increased in Rand terms 1300% in 9 years
 
Decided to stop after the first one.

It was after reading these threads that I realised I was getting taken for a ride.

A little investigation & it was confirmed.

Any real growth on my money was going straight to the "FA" & financial institution. Leaving me with pitiful, if not negative growth on investments.

Property is a good call, yet getting in is tricky.

Offshore does seem like an appealing option. will have to do some more homework.
 
Looking into Easy Equities, anyone tried it out?

Thinking it could be a good place to start for a newbie...

Thanks in advance.
 
chrisc said:
I have also had 3 financial advisors who managed to lose my money. One allowed it to dwindle to 70% of the value before he took action, another suggested a fund that would pay 10.5% interest monthly. This lasted 14 months and they went belly up, taking R265 million of investors money. The fund directors each paid themselves R70m and did a duck. Did he do a due-diligence? He refused to answer

All my property investments have been fine. Now and then you get a dodgy tenant but on the whole they have been good. With the property downturn I do not increase the rent beyond 4%

I also have an investment in a Sygnia Euro Fund. This has increased in Rand terms 1300% in 9 years
Click to expand...

10% a month?! Surely "sounds too good to be true" would have had alarm bells ringing?
 
R10T said:
Property is a good call, yet getting in is tricky.

Offshore does seem like an appealing option. will have to do some more homework.
Click to expand...

Homework is the thing you're right about.

It's not too tricky to get into property unless you've got a bad credit score. There are large caveats though. I've said numerous times on these forums, the problems with property investments are liquidity and diversification. You tie up a lot of your eggs in one basket, so if something goes wrong you're risking a large part of your wealth compared with the small percentage if a particular company in an index find goes belly-up. The other thing is if you want to cash out, property can be hard to sell quickly. In the current market, I wouldn't invest in property but that's just my opinion.

Investing offshore is also tricky because you have to watch the growth of the investment not just in rands but in the original currency. @zerocool2009 's 17% growth is great but is the actual investment growing or is the Rand just fluctuating up and down? It does that a lot lately.

I have one investment which looks up 19% or so in Rand terms, but in dollar terms it's actually declined a bit. But the Rand has gone from R12.50 to R14.20 Vs the greenback over the last few months.
 
R10T said:
Looking into Easy Equities, anyone tried it out?

Thinking it could be a good place to start for a newbie...

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

I have an account with them - a TFSA and a "normal" brokerage fee.

No monthly fee is really great.
 
Thanks for all the responses.

Yeah, think doing the homework is a necessity. Shooting in the dark won't get you anywhere imo.
ETFs do look appealing, now to do that homework :)

Going to give it whirl & see what happens.
 
supersunbird said:
OK, are you earning a salary and contributing to a work pension/provident fund? If yes, how much?

Say you do have a pension fund at work, and you're contributing 15% of salary to that , you can contribute another 12.5% to that work fund (if allowed) or to an RA, the tax benefit limit is 27.5% of income. This has a tax benefit (but also "negatives" according to some people, like only accessing it after age 55 and then only a portion directly).

Say your earn R200 000 per year and you contribute 15% to work pension/provident fund. You are then taxed only as if you earn R170 000. If you contribute another 10% to an RA, you will be taxed as earned R150 000. Come efiling time you then get the income tax paid on that R20 000 back.

You can also look at TFSA (which includes investments into unit trusts), R33 000 per year limit on total TFSA contributions (a year runs from 1 March to 28 Feb). Contributions are taxed at 40%.

So on way you could do it, put money into a RA. Then some of it into a TFSA and keep the rest as is in discretionary unit trusts.

If you ever need to access the funds for whatever reason liek emergency or whatever:
You access the normal unit trusts.
Then if that not enough, you access the TFSA, you cant replenish what you take out (there is a lifetime limit), so savings of last resort.
After age 55 you can access a 1 third of RA as cash at anytime, the rest must buy a living or life annuity which pays a pension.

I hope the above helps, feel free to ask more.
Click to expand...

I contribute to pension fund on my employer.

The tax is deducted monthly from my gross salary.

I have recently signed up for an RA on debit order.

When will I get tax rebates on my recently opened RA and how?

I have not informed my employer that I have signed up for an RA.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X