I enjoy using lines from movies when talking to clients about investing and financial planning. For example there is the classic line by Jack Nicolson’s character from “A few good men” when he is on the witness stand and being asked about the truth of an investigation to which he replies…”You want the truth? You cant handle the truth”. Sadly we get to use this when telling clients the truth about being...

I was recenlty approached by someone who was looking to save a bit of money for his newly born nephew…he wanted to put away R100 pm for the next 21 years or so. Not a problem I assured him – a unit trust is the way to go… However, it appears that most unit trust companies are no longer interested in the smaller amounts and now insist on a minimum debit order of at least R500 per month. There are still 1 or 2 companies that...

I have been a huge fan of Fundisa, having written about it often and having encouraged many of my clients to invest in it…however, after initially being a huge fan of the product, I have done some more work on it and as I see it, the big hurdle that Fundisa has is the underlying fund and its potential returns over a 15 year period…so much so, that I am questioning whether or not I can continue to support it. Here is my ...

I need to get this off my chest (again)…been fighting with 3 of the bigger insurance companies re the level of disclosure on their products with respect to fees and more specifically the performance on their portfolios… Suffice to say it is a futile exercise – it appears that even in this highly regulated environment that they can get away with complete nonsense when it comes to answering questions put to them . There is...

Following on from the first post on RSA Retail Bonds, I received a reply from the communications manager at National Treasury who referred me to 2 more people and I finally received a 10 page summary on the bonds. The first section is titled “How to invest” and answers the questions we had but is unfortunately not available on the website (yet)! Turns out though, that if you want to invest via the website you need to...

Much was made about the RSA Retail Bond when it was launched and about how it would provide a safe and cheap investment with a reasonable returns to the “man-in-the-street”. Well, I have been trying to buy some of these for a “man-in-the-street” using the RSA Retail Bond website – what a nightmare. There is an application form online but no details where to submit it or how to pay the funds into an account. So...