RETIREMENT PART 5: What’s the difference between retirement products?
Nazia Khalon Official retirement products have great tax benefits but come with some restrictions. Understand your options before you commit. Making the decision to start investing for retirement is the first step. The next step is to decide on what tools to use. This means figuring out the difference between retirement products and other products on offer. The range of options to consider can leave you flattened even before you’ve made a start, but the best way to approach these options is to think about your needs and your level of self-control. Some options will give you freedom and flexibility, which may tempt you to withdraw prematurely and lose the benefits of compounding over time. Others will lock you in, but give you great tax deductions in return. Decide on what works for yo
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The Financial Services Industry: Only serving themselves?
John Kay’s critique of the industry, Other People’s Money, looks at the need for reform to avoid another crisis. John Kay is an economist with both academic and corporate experience, and a columnist for the Financial Times. In his latest book, Other People’s Money (R452, Takealot.com http://www.takealot.com/other-people-s-money/PLID34890927), Kay positions himself as a critic of the current incarnation of the financial services industry, suggesting that its usefulness to society has failed to keep pace with its size and the scope of its involvement in the economy. The financial sector serves society and the economy in (at least) four ways. The payments system enables businesses and individuals to pay and receive wages and to buy goods and services. The sector also enables eff
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Banks: Long-term value outweighs the risks
Despite the meaningful risks looming over South Africa’s banking sector, the current combination of attractive dividend yields and relatively cheap valuations presents attractive prospective medium-term returns for investors in local bank shares, despite fairly muted earnings growth expectations in the low- to mid-single digits, according to Craig Butters, equity portfolio manager and banking sector analyst at Prudential Investment Managers. Banking stocks fell sharply in December 2015 on the back of the large jump in bond yields in reaction to the surprise firing of Finance Minister Nene, to levels well below their historic valuations. They have remained under pressure due to the increased risk of a downgrade of South Africa’s sovereign foreign currency credit rating to non-investm
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CNBC AFRICA: Grant Van Zyl on retirement planning
CNBC Africa's Lindsay Williams talks to Grant Van Zyl, Certified Financial planner at The Wealth Room about the "management of money" and discuss on retirement planning, pension funds, living annuities and investments and savings.
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Investment Value
How do you know if the investment has any value? The value of your investment is determined by the value of the underlying assets in your investment and the asset price change or if you buy or sell off units during the period of the investment. Your investment value can change depending on the underlying assets in the investment When the price of the units you own changes, this can affect your investment in a positive or a negative way. However the scenario that you are optimistic for is for your unit trust to earn returns through capital growth, which will then effect the value of your investment in a positive way. If the underlying assets are volatile, then the price of the units can fluctuate during the investment period. The most important thing to keep in mind is as long as
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Understanding Return & Unit Price
Understanding Unit Trust Returns Maximize your capital growth in your investment Some investments focus purely on getting the best possible capital growth by investing in assets that the fund managers feel will grow over time. How they do this is by looking for assets that offer a great value for money, or that they feel they are getting at a discounted price to what they are worth. The fund managers will then hold onto these assets for some time, until the underlying assets get to a point that they are worth more than what they were purchased for and then sell them off at a profit. Maximize your possible income growth on an investment Certain investments or unit trusts main goal is to not necessarily achieve capital growth, but rather create a reliable or steady stream of income thr
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