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Ending on a sour note

11 December 2018

Hopes of a pre-Christmas rally on global equity markets were dashed last week. The optimism around a thawing in US-China trade relations following the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires lasted barely a day before it became clear that there was widespread confusion over what exactly the two countries agreed to. US President Trump’s message that “I am a tariff man” then set the cat properly among the pigeons. A day later, markets tumbled on the news that a top executive at Chinese telecoms giant Huawei had been arrested for alleged sanctions-busting in its dealings with Iran, a move that added renewed strain in the relationship between China and the US.

A tough investing year behind us, what now?

10 December 2018

It has been an extremely challenging period in markets. Investors are disillusioned, while their portfolio managers have been humbled. A manager whose style maintains a bias toward the large-cap sector of the JSE likely suffered negative returns regardless of their selection decisions. Giants such as MTN, Aspen and Tiger Brands declined by over 40% during 2018, while a few other well-regarded names fell more than 30%. Naspers lost about a fifth of its value since the beginning of the year and even the ever popular property sector fell by a similar amount.

2018 - A time to remember why we remain invested

07 December 2018

The year 2018 started off with signals of synchronised growth across the globe, instilling a fair amount of optimism in investors. But now, as we can almost touch the end of this calendar year, the mood has turned markedly cautious. We capture the main themes of 2018 that caused the outlook among South African investors to turn glum, and cover the conversations advisers need to have with their clients to make sure clients’ portfolios pull through this low-growth environment unscathed.

Offshore trusts ‘not only for the super-rich’

06 December 2018

Offshore trusts have long been regarded as the sole preserve of ultra-high net worth individuals, but the reality is that they compare favourably to local service providers in terms of investment and retirement trust options, says independent trust service provider Sovereign Trust (SA) Limited.

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Do you think short-term insurance broking will survive the AI plus humanoid robotics age?

Answer

Human first always Not a chance Possibly maybe Yes, but reimagined

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