Budget 2024: What it means for you
“Our bigger challenge… is that our pie is not growing fast enough and this limits our ability to generate sufficient revenues to distribute among our priority areas.” (Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana – Budget 2024) Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s third Budget Speech in an election year contained few surprises, but also little in the form of […]
Diversification: Free Lunch or Fool’s Gold?
“Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.” (Warren Buffett) This is all very well, Warren, but we can’t all afford excessive risk. For this reason, Harry Markowitz coined the phrase that diversification is the only free lunch in investing. The concept is that owning a […]
The Most Important Part of a Financial Plan: Room for Error
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” (Yogi Berra) A sound financial plan is invaluable. It looks ahead to what you want from your money and gives you a way of measuring how well you are doing in getting there. It gives you a lot of confidence to be […]
Market Update: Initial Investor Vote of Confidence Dissipates in Wake of Budget
Investor sentiment turns sour Investors’ initial vote on the government’s Budget was positive with the rand firming and bond yields declining. But sentiment soon turned negative once the details and ramifications of National Treasury’s decisions were fully digested. Initially the rand strengthened to R18.825 against the dollar, gaining almost half a percent on the perception […]