START YOUR MORNING BY LISTENING TO TODAY’S BIZNEWS BREAKFAST BRIEFING PODCAST: US inflation drops, pushes Nasdaq back into Bull Market; Bitcoin surges above $24k; Rand jumps again; Solid Nedbank growth, interim divi back above pre-Covid level
(If you’re struggling to access BBB via Spotify or iTunes, an audio-only version is also available on YouTube. Click here).
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Marketers are masters in bending statistics to deliver the message their clients want to deliver. Not least in financial services where careful selection of the starting date lets them apply data to ‘prove’ claims which best suits their book.
For instance, a marketer needing to punt SA-focused equity funds, can accurately claim that in 2022 the JSE has outperformed most major stock markets – and has been a 10 times better investment than Bitcoin.
But a different starting point delivers very different results. Money manager Piet Viljoen suggests we should only compare over a full cycle, usually seven years. At BizNews we believe the minimum period should be three years.
So I was delighted to see that in his latest pack of graphs, Stanlib chief economist Kevin Lings included an annual performance table for the years from 2019.
Using a starting unit of 1 000 for each asset class resulted in the table below revealing a very different picture to what you might have expected. For instance, despite halving this year Bitcoin remains comfortably the best performer of the major assets since the beginning of 2019. So next time you’re being nudged into buying a particular asset, first check the starting date.
More for you to read today:
- The Nasdaq Composite Is Back in a Bull Market. The tech-focused index has risen more than 20% since mid-June but is still down 18% this year.
- The Place With the Most Lithium Is Blowing the Electric-Car Revolution. A California-sized piece of South America is stifling production of the metal at a time when battery-makers desperately need it.
- PBMR revisited. Theuns Eloff says small modular nuclear power reactors, pioneered here but abandoned, should be part of SA’s energy solution.
- War Game Finds U.S., Taiwan Can Defend Against a Chinese Invasion. All sides would pay a heavy price if ever there were a military conflict over the island.
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