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Touring the Investment Landscape in the Czech Republic

25 August 2014

My team and I have been touring Central and Eastern Europe this summer, and our travels recently took us to the Czech Republic. It’s a country with an interesting history, and from our perspective, it also holds a variety of interesting potential investment opportunities, too. It’s filled with lots of visitors from all over the world—I recognized both Korean and Mandarin being spoken on the streets in the beautiful city of Prague, and in our hotel there was a group of Japanese tourists. Clearly, they travelled a long way to get there! Prague is an attractive destination not only because of its history but also its collection of beautiful buildings and interesting architecture, an important draw for travellers. There are all kinds of architectural styles including Medieval, Art Deco, Beaux Arts, Baroque, Victorian, and extreme Modern (like the Dancing House by Frank Gehry). The Vltava River running through the city is a focal point, and the famous Charles Bridge decorated with baroque statues of saints is a great place to view the Hrad?any Castle on the mountain overlooking the city.

Representing the true risk of money market

21 August 2014

Most investors consider Money Market and Income Funds to be low risk and assign a low probability to losing their money (capital and/or income). This, in part, is assisted by the accounting surrounding these Funds in South Africa, but investors should consider the consequence if a larger majority of the investor community required to withdraw at the same time whether the Fixed or Constant NAV (Net Asset Value) of 1.00 of the Money Market Fund would still hold true.