Our US and SA portfolios – one up 32%, other is flat. No prizes for guessing.

LONDON — We manage two "bundles" on the EasyEquities platform, offering the Biznews community a low cost, small ticket entry into tightly focused portfolios of US and South African shares. The vehicles, where investors can acquire a fractional slice from as little as R250, are popular, attracting millions of rand from over a thousand small investors. The performance of the two portfolios has been extremely different, mirroring the different trajectories of the two economies. Since its launch last November, the US Exponential bundle has appreciated by 32%, three times the gain of the overall US market. But since its launch in January 2017 the SA Champions portfolio has flatlined, underperforming the modest 9% gain of the JSE All Share index. – Alec Hogg

Features of the past month:

Amazon.com – Now accounting for a hefty 35% of the portfolio, Amazon's already sky high reputation continues soaring. After a stellar set of quarterly results where profit rose fivefold year-on-year to $2.5bn and revenue surged 39% to $53bn off the already high base for the quarter, Jeff Bezos's creation keeps gathering momentum. Over half the profit was generated by the highly profitable cloud offering Amazon Web Services delivered a 79% jump in earnings to $1.6bn. As a result of being years ahead of competitors in the Cloud space, Amazon holds 52% of the market, far ahead of its nearest competitor Microsoft (13.3%). Good news, too, from its recent $13.5bn acquisition of Whole Foods where the recently launched "click and collect" facility is being taken up at "one of the fastest rates yet for a Prime benefit" according to the Financial Director Brian Olsavsky.

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