But not for long… If you are looking for income from your cash then the RSA Retail Bond (2 year fixed-rate option) is still offering 8% – that’s about the best “guaranteed” option available. But that rate is likely to fall by about 0.5% at the beginning of December (the repo rate was cut by 0.5% to 5.5% last week). To qualify for the 8% rate you need to have invested the money with them before the end of November, so you...

Mostly, I love what I do – helping people to manage their money better. Yesterday I was reminded again of the value that we can add to people’s lives… A client called me about a forex transaction that she was busy with to see if I thought the rate that the bank was offering her was a fair one. A quick glance at the spot rates told me that they were offering her a rate that was 2% more than the spot rate…I told her that I thought...

I came across the following in an excellent book about financial planning that I am reading, it’s called “Your clients for life”.  I have adapted it slightly for South African conditions. 20′s: I CANT SAVE NOW. I’m just getting established. I have student loans to pay back, as well as a car loan. I’m not ready to make committments yet and I want to have fun while I can. There will be time to think about...

Successive consultants and managers have struggled to see my resistance to support Old Mutual when looking for solutions for clients. They have repeatedly tried to sell me the “company line” – 165 years of experience, solid big company etc etc etc… I dont care, I just dont trust them to do what is in the client’s best interests and this was proved yet again when we were approached by a client for help to...

Got this recently from SIM – makes interesting reading and gives food for thought about where one should be investing going forward… Click on the picture to enlarge it and see it more clearly…and then hit the “back” button on your browser when you have...

One of the really difficult parts of dealing with people and their money is having to give them bad news about the performance of the funds in which they are invested. They usually react badly and look for all sorts of people to blame (most often this the advisor). Behavioral Finance psychologists tell us that this has something to do with the fact that the pain of loss is about twice as great as the joy experienced from a gain. The...