31
Jul
2020
My Precious: Gold makes a comeback
An interesting trend has emerged out of the depths of the current crisis: Gold has made a stunning comeback. Recently it surpassed $2000 for the first time in history after languishing ...
31
May
2020
Crisis? What Crisis?
While the world around us feels like it is falling apart, you might be forgiven for missing the fact that many investment markets, including our own, have mostly recaptured losses and ...
30
Apr
2020
Binary thinking, What-Ifs and why it helps to disagree with yourself
We live in a world of complex problems. Each day we need to make decisions which affect our lives and those of our clients and colleagues. We are also subject to the decisions of others ...
31
Mar
2020
Dreaming of a Sovereign Wealth Fund
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced during his State of the Nation address in February 2020 that South Africa intends to establish a Sovereign Wealth Fund. The immediate reaction has ...
5
Sep
2016
Structured Products: the International Titans Basket offered by Investec Bank
We have recently received a number of queries around the value of structured products within a client portfolio. This research note covers these products generally, with specific ...
7
Jul
2016
UK Property Funds: Barbarians at the Gate
It appears that democracy is squarely to blame for clients being unable to get their money out of many of the UK direct property funds. Who would have thought that the vote last ...
17
May
2016
Fight instinct to back perennial winners
Which fund would you buy today, without knowing anything more about them? A top-quartile fund returning 30 per cent over three years, or a bottom-quartile fund that lost 10 per cent in ...
12
Jan
2016
Does Smart Beta have a role in South African portfolios?
Recently we have been looking at the emergence of 'smart beta' and the role it can play in client portfolios. Smart beta goes by many names - 'factor investing', 'quants' or 'enhanced ...
23
Nov
2015
Drawdowns: Seismic events in Investment markets
Investment risk can have a different meaning to each investor, however capital drawdowns are often seen as the risk torch bearer. In this article Peter Foster discusses various types of ...
26
Oct
2015
German Re-engineering
The last quarter saw a number of significant economic events and market shifts, ranging from the US Fed's decision not to raise interest rates, through to concerns regarding China's ...