When planning your wealth creation journey, it helps to understand all the tools available in the toolbox. Bond ETFs remain poorly understood by many investors, leading to portfolio strategies that don’t include fixed income investments. In this podcast with Siyabulela Nomoyi of Satrix*, we put the spotlight on bond ETFs. We covered topics like the relationship between interest rates and capital values, the way in which these ETFs add value to a portfolio and the macroeconomic conditions that...

The Global Accelerator offers 100% capital protection in dollars at maturity after five years, while giving exposure to global equity indices. To explain how it all works, Japie Lubbe of Investec Structured Products joined me on this podcast and covered the following topics: The design of the underlying equity basket The use of “insurance” in an equity portfolio and how this can be understood in the context of more familiar concepts like car and home insurance The upside of the Global...

There’s a lot more to blockchain technology than just the latest Bitcoin or Ether price. After the boom of NFTs and all kinds of other things during the pandemic, things clearly cooled off in this space - and for the better. In the meantime, corporates and entrepreneurs are busy in the background on tokenisation of assets to create digital assets. In a digital economy, digital assets are important. The Fintech space is more widely understood. But again, it goes beyond just a payments solution...

Nico Katzke of Satrix* returns to Ghost Stories to talk about the latest buzzword of the moment: Artificial Intelligence (AI). This topic has been dominating market headlines for a while now and it poses both opportunities and risks. In this podcast, we discuss: The way in which some people run towards hype and others run in the opposite direction – talking to the different investor personalities in the market. Whether the development of cloud computing and SaaS can teach us anything about...

Brian McMillan of the Structured Products team at Investec is back on Ghost Stories, this time to talk about the Investec Nikkei 225 Autocall. This product is designed to give investors exposure to the Nikkei 225 index over a period of up to five years with an enhanced return of up to 17% per annum in ZAR or 11.5% per annum in USD. Importantly, there is 100% capital protection provided the index does not drop by more than 30%. To help you understand this opportunity, the topics covered...

In this episode of Ghost Stories, Siyabulela Nomoyi returned to the platform once more to talk about two exciting product launches at Satrix. Of course, The Finance Ghost couldn’t resist kicking off the show with a question around whether Siya stuck to his festive season savings goals that were discussed at the end of 2023 in a previous episode! Moving on to all things ETF related, topics of discussion included: How Satrix approaches the product design process. An overview of the Satrix MSCI...

Deon Lewis (co-founder of Futureneers) and James Rothmann (Projects Director and Tax Innovation Officer at Futureneers) joined The Finance Ghost to talk about the 12BA Renewable Energy Partnership and the opportunity it offers investors for a tax-enhanced investment in solar. On this podcast, we talked about topics including: The background of Futureneers and the investment track record. The return profile of the solar projects both with and without the tax benefits. The way the tax works...

This is a big year for South Africa. Load shedding returned literally straight after the State of the Nation Address, creating a difficult foundation for the Budget Speech. The headlines are full of political activity in the build-up to elections. There's a lot going on. Tertius Troost is in the Tax Consulting team at Mazars, so this is a busy month to say the least. He took time away from a hectic February tax diary to share insights as a preview to the Budget Speech. Why is this important?...

Welcome to 2024! An investing strategy can only be successful if there is money available to invest. In the first part of this podcast, The Finance Ghost and Duma Mxenge discussed concepts like: The value of planning ahead and how this can save money (e.g. when booking holidays – especially to cheaper jurisdictions than South Africa!) The usefulness of sitting with a financial advisor earlier in the year. Dangers of living bonus-to-bonus each year. The reality of middle-class inflation in...

We are now in December, which is generally a month of spending rather than investing. Of course, it shouldn’t be that way if you have the correct financial plan in place, a topic that Siyabulela Nomoyi (Quantitative Portfolio Manager at Satrix) joined me to discuss. We couldn’t resist the opportunity to dig into ETFs as well! In the final Ghost Stories podcast with Satrix for 2023, topics covered included: The right way to think about saving and investing, particularly in the context of...

Nico Katzke is no stranger to Ghost Mail readers. He has written several articles in his role at Satrix and has appeared on a number of podcasts with me. In this show, there was more of a cross-over with personal finance than usual. The reality is that if you can’t save every month, then you also can’t invest. Topics we discussed included: Why does it make sense to treat your own financials like corporates do? And why is the concept of an inflection point in your income so important? How...

Mazars has announced a landmark network with Forvis, creating a top 10 firm in the USA. The CEO of Mazars in South Africa, Anoop Ninan, joined me to unpack why this is important. Of course, I didn’t waste the opportunity to tap into his extensive business knowledge at the same time! Topics discussed included: An overview of the unique network with Forvis and why this is important in a professional services environment that is highly fragmented in the assurance and related services space. How...

Nico Katzke of Satrix is a familiar voice to Ghost Mail readers and podcast enthusiasts. He’s back on Ghost Stories, with a fantastic twist halfway through the podcast where we switched roles and he started asking me questions. Nico in the hot seat: Diversification vs. “diworsification” – a topic always worth revisiting, with commentary on the impact on the market as a whole and an understanding of correlation. The danger of only seeing the highlights reel of an investment journey, masking...

After I wrote critically about the pricing of African Bank’s deal to acquire two businesses out of Sasfin, the company contacted me to discuss the thinking behind the deal in more detail. I was highly impressed with the willingness to engage, especially as African Bank graciously recognised that Ghost Mail’s free-to-read format is only made possible by partners. The bank opted to sponsor a podcast appearance by African Bank CEO Kennedy Bungane, who has been in the banking industry for over...

Structured products have come a long way. From a specialised, exotic investment tool, they are now mainstream, and financial advisers are now more comfortable about investing in them on behalf of clients. Having covered the Investec USD S&P 500 Autocall on a previous podcast (Episode 19 of Ghost Stories), we now move on to the Optimal Investment Growth Basket Limited promoted by Investec. This product offers a maximum annualised return in USD of 9.8% per annum over five years, with 100%...

The universe of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) is broad, offering investors many different ways to invest in the market. Not only are there various different sector and weighting methodologies available, but Satrix ETFs offer South African investors a way to make perhaps the biggest decision of all: offshore vs. local exposure. As we reflect on ETF performance in 2023, Siyabulela Nomoyi of Satrix joined The Finance Ghost to look at topics like: Offshore vs. local performance and the impact of...

Are dividends always worth celebrating? Does a company paying a dividend really reward shareholders, or is this just shuffling money around? These are the kinds of questions that Nico Katzke of Satrix discussed with The Finance Ghost on this episode of Ghost Stories. Nico is a wealth of information about the markets and these podcasts are always highly interactive. Topics covered included: Headlines were all over the place recently about Michael Burry shorting the US market – did the media...

Structured products have come a long way. From a specialised, exotic investment tool, they are now mainstream, and financial advisers are now more comfortable about investing in them on behalf of clients. A perfect example is the Investec USD S&P 500 Autocall, where investors can earn a potential return of up to 8.4% p.a. if the index ends flat or positive on one of the call dates in year 3, 4 or 5. Provided the index does not end below 70% of the initial index level, there is full...

Equity ETFs tend to dominate the narrative among investors, particularly retail investors. Fixed income or bond ETFs are often ignored, which is a pity now that yields have picked up to current levels. Fixed income instruments can be difficult to understand. The trick is in the name, as the capital value fluctuates based on a fixed underlying coupon and the yield that the market demands. In shining a light on this asset class with Siyabulela Nomoyi from Satrix, we discussed: The reasons why...

This episode of Ghost Stories is brought to you by Fedgroup, a diversified financial services group offering a range of financial products across investment, long-term insurance, lending, and fiduciary services. Fedgroup Financial Holdings (Pty) Limited is a licensed controlling company and entities within the Group are authorised financial services providers. Established in 1990, Fedgroup has grown into a specialist financial services provider with over R10bn in assets under management and...

As we head into National Savings Month in July, Thembeka Khumalo of Satrix joined The Finance Ghost to talk about an incredibly important element of personal finance: investing for minor children. Minor children tend to have major expenses, making it difficult for parents to strike a balance between monthly expenses and the need to save. Thembeka has three-year-old twins and the Ghost also has a three-year-old, so this podcast comes from the heart. Topics included: The importance of diligent...

In this episode of Ghost Stories, Duma Mxenge (Business Development Manager at Satrix) joins the platform for the first time for a great discussion around ETFs, trends around this type of investment and the way that investors understand the products and use them. More specifically, we discussed: Some of the generational trends coming through in the attitude to investing and particularly ETFs, including fees. The impact of fees in a wealth creation journey. Whether investors tend to have a...