Explore the Category

Greece’s precarious position

14 July 2015 | Economy

Three professionals from Templeton Global Equity Group, Norm Boersma, Cindy Sweeting and Heather Arnold, offer their perspective on the recent developments in Greece. The strong vote the weekend of July 4th against austerity in Greece increases the odds of a “Grexit” or Greek exit from the Eurozone, in our view. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has interpreted the results as strengthening his position versus creditors in negotiations, but it is possible that Tsipras may be more conciliatory on the margin given the dire circumstances facing Greece and its banking system, and the desire of the majority of Greek voters to stay in the Eurozone. Eurozone policymakers, however, will likely hold firm and not make many concessions to Greece. We think they will need to avoid enabling populist movements elsewhere in Europe and are under mounting pressure from their own constituencies who are becoming increasingly unwilling to allow for flexibility in negotiations. The news of Greek finance minister Varoufakis’ resignation is being perceived as an incremental positive for negotiations, but we think the “No” vote in Greece over the first weekend in July, the precarious position of the Greek banking system, and Eurozone policymaker distrust of the current Greek government have clearly raised the chances of a Greek Eurozone exit.

Phased but not confused

14 July 2015 | General

Investing an initial amount of money can be quite a stressful exercise. This anxiety can be directly related to the size of the initial amount. Investing R500 monthly is a fairly easy exercise, but this becomes an infinitely more difficult one when investing a large lump sum e.g. R3 000 000. The problem can be further exacerbated if the investor and his adviser perceive the market to be somewhat expensive. Many market participants have proposed different strategies for dealing with this stressful decision. One strategy is to phase-in the lump sum investment over a specified period of time. The purpose of this article is to explore the merit of this strategy.

Investing in shares is like investing in a farm

13 July 2015 | General

Speaking at the 2015 Sanlam Benchmark Symposium, Kokkie Kooyman, head of Sanlam Investments Global, shared some timeless learnings from Warren Buffett’s 50 years of successful investing, and likened some of these to farming.

Putting current global goings-on in perspective

13 July 2015 | General

There are three issues that have been weighing on the minds of investors lately; namely the Greek crisis, the collapse in the Chinese stock market and the looming first hike in US interest rates. But what does this really mean for investors and is the news as bad as all the hype suggests? According to Graham Tucker, Manager of the Old Mutual Balanced Fund at Old Mutual Investment Group, these issues need to be viewed in context and may actually produce further investment opportunities.

quick poll

Question

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

View the Results