The world is changing fast and to keep up you need local knowledge with global context.
Alec Hogg’s regular column covering investment, economics, moneycraft and, occasionally, something very personal.
By Alec Hogg After spending a day listening to some of SA’s smartest money managers, as I did yesterday, you’d be hard pressed to retain any money in JSE-listed shares. All the owner/managers of boutique shops in the Met CI universe said local shares are expensive. They have their highest liquidity positions in years. But … Read more
Hi there, During the next two days I’ll be getting a front row seat in an event highlighting one of the major trends sweeping the world. It’s facilitating a series of panels for the Met CI annual event showing off its partnerships with investment boutiques – the preferred route for many of the best money … Read more
Hi there, The five month platinum strike has confounded the pundits. The old book of rules is being ripped to shreds. A new normal beckons. By now, cash-strapped workers should have long capitulated. Yet the strike continues. How? Two things make it possible. Around 20% of the strikers have resigned, triggering the cashing in of … Read more
Hi there, Among my privileges is serving Scouts SA, introduced to the board by “Mr Scouting”, the late Garnet de la Hunt. Yesterday afternoon was spent with trustees of the Foundation, the movement’s endowment portfolio. The portfolio has been fully invested in JSE shares for some years. As a result, the portfolio has grown handsomely … Read more
Hi there, Many White South Africans, especially the logical types you find in executive suites, find it hard to suppress sighs when politicians blame problems on the Legacy of Apartheid. What they’re thinking is rarely expressed in words – that’s too un-PC – but all too easy to read in faces: It’s been two decades, … Read more
Hi there, South Africans snigger about the way Australian businessmen bring their lawyers to business meetings. Or how there are so many lawyers in America they sue each other to stay occupied. There are obvious downsides to litigious societies. But it is also possible to lean too far in the opposite direction, as South Africa … Read more
Hi there, Research last week introduced me to Colonel Edward Harwood, one of the few to warn fellow Americans ahead of the 1929 Crash. Among other achievements, he founded the non-profit American Institute of Economic Research in 1933. It survives to this day, best known for its Everyday Price Index, for many the most realistic … Read more
Hi there, Everyone loves a bargain. Except in the share market. Shareholders are never happier than when recently bought counters rise in value. Or more miserable than when the price falls. Which is actually completely irrational. Investment means taking a longer-term view. The less you pay for something today, the greater its return will translate … Read more
Hi there, Yesterday afternoon I listened carefully to my old pal Piet Viljoen sharing his perspectives. A value investor to his toes, Viljoen has worked so hard at swimming against fashion he now genuinely loves it when a share he’s been buying falls in price. At the annual RECM conference yesterday he explained how he … Read more
Hi there, Last night colleague Lucy Ferreira sent me an SA Tourism video that’s deservedly gone viral on Youtube. It is a wonderful reminder of this engaged nation. A nation which expects high standards of its leaders and lets them know, loudly, when they fall short. And why we speak out, ‘passionately, when they take us in … Read more