1. Where do I invest the other R500/month?
2. What is the difference between the S&P 500 ETF and the MSCI World ETF? Their underlying portfolios seem very similar.
3. I am not keen to invest in SA companies - the future seems to be gloomy. From an investment pespective, am I wrong in holding that opinion?
1. Where (like which broker?) or in what? If it's the latter, it's up to you. Everyone has different reasons to invest in different things. Otherwise, I use Easy Equities because there is no monthly account fees with them. You just pay when you invest / pull out. Their pricing is very reasonable, and if you are willing to put in admin, you can get discounts on select stocks / ETF's. I used to use FNB's Share Saver, but they became quite costly.
2. Are you talking about
this with regards to the S&P 500? Or the US one (
this as an example)? One thing to note with the local S&P ETF's is while they do track the US S&P 500, you lose out on currency gains (Although this has confused me before, I'm not 100% sure if I'm correct here). I prefer to invest with dollars when it comes to the S&P 500. That's just me. You sort of have to pick and choose if you want to take a knock for the ZAR to dollar conversion, or invest in rands and save some admin. People have different reasons for doing either. Anyway, from Vanguards website:
Invests in stocks in the S&P 500 Index, representing 500 of the largest U.S. companies.
MCSI world (the developed markets one) has a lot more spread. It includes companies from 23 countries, not just the US.
What I do when I try figure out the differences is I look at the fact sheets / MDD's for the ETF. It gives a useful breakdown of it. Most of the websites for the ETF's also have a list of constituents, so you can see what you're investing in.
3. To each their own with this. I am still torn about what to do, but I am sort of maintaining a 50% split (kind of) between local and international for now.
