I recently read an article where the person was writing about how to choose a financial planner/advisor…some of what he said made absolute sense. Such as, asking for references from existing clients and checking that they are in fact registered with the Financial Services Board. But then, I am afraid, he lost all credibility when he suggested that you should “ask the advisor for a free review of your position and some ideas on...

So it looks like the “fuss” is all over and the equity market is set to run even further…I guess it is at times like these that you need to make sure you are “in for the ride” and not sitting on the sidelines watching it all go by. But it is also important that investors do a little “stock take” (pun intended) and understand/remember the following…afterall, has anyone seen the fat lady sing yet? Investing ...

According to the latest report from the Pension Fund Adjudicator, there are currently about 14900 unresolved cases (complaints) that they are still dealing with and this is on top of the 8275 cases that they have resolved this year. The Financial Services Board is also struggling with a significant backlog in their case loads and are unable to meet their own turnaround times (especially in the Section 14 transfer department). What is clear...

There is an old song where the lyrics went something like this “the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, but still they come!” At least the odds were better than the chance of you winning the lotto in SA where your odds are one in 13 983 816 (or 0.000000072%)*. Let’s put this in perspective: if there are 2 draws per week (104 per year) then you would need to play the lotto every draw for 134459 years to have...

Results from the American Demographics poll showed that retirement is more difficult than becoming a parent or than getting married*. Those that felt retirement was the most difficult adjustment said that they struggle with the monotony, boredom, lack of purpose and lack of intellectual stimulation that traditional retirement offers. So if this is the case, why is there still such a one-dimensional approach to retirement from the financial...

After having been a client of Std Bank for 19 years I finally had enough of the ridiculous bank fees that I was paying (R185 flat fee) and moved to Nedbank (R65 for the same thing and an annual saving of R1440!). The process was a lot easier than I had anticipated and is something that I should have done years ago. I did quite a bit of shopping around and apart from Capitec Bank, Nedbank was the cheapest option that I could find. They offer...