March 2, 2020 Dear Investor, Many of you are aware of the coronavirus that began in China and has now expanded to other countries around the globe. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019. Initially the bulk of cases and fatalities...
By Pieter Hundersmarck As published by BusinessLive.co.za on 19 February, 2020 Global stocks outperform overall, but there are pockets of value for seasoned investors. Early in my career I comanaged an emerging-markets fund that delivered market-beating returns from 2007 to 2014. After this good run a tough year...
By Pieter Hundersmarck 17 Feb 2020 German born Johann Carolus (1575−1634) was the publisher of the world’s first newspaper, with the catchy title of “Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien” or “account of all distinguished and commemorable news”. Although we wonder if Carolus would define today’s anxiety-laden diatribe...
By Kyle Wales 3 February 2020 South Africans have been on the receiving end of a stream of bad news lately. Unfortunately that stream shows no sign of abating. One area that I believe hasn’t received adequate response in the press is Cosatu’s suggestion that assets belonging to...
By Pieter Hundersmarck 28 Jan 2020 What if the secret to affluence was simply time and discipline? Over the past decade, America’s millionaire population has ballooned to 11.8m households and now comprises 3% of the US population. The media declares that technology, property, and cryptocurrency bets have made...
Strong quarter for global equities After the disastrous December 2018 quarter (when the all country world index fell by over 13%), the March 2019 quarter staged an impressive comeback, rising by 11.6%. This was the second strongest quarter on record for the global index. The beaten-down Chinese...
A year to forget The past year has been one of the worst for global markets. The world index suffered its heaviest decline since the great recession: down over 11% (but 17% from its January high!). The robust earnings growth went largely unrewarded on concerns that the...
Current Environment As September marked the 10th anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, there was widespread commentary on the likely source of the next crisis. While opinions varied significantly, the consensus view was that it was impossible to predict: like the ‘sucker punch’ in boxing, it’s the one...
Global economy The global expansion is now entering its 10th year, one of the longest on record. And yet it appears that it still has further to go. Although the synchronised upturn among global economies appears to be losing some of its cohesion, conditions remain robust. However,...
Backdrop Despite solid economic and earnings growth globally, the past quarter has been characterised by massive volatility and weak equity markets worldwide. From the January market peak, the world market index collapsed by 9%, then rebounded by over 5%, before declining again by a further 6%....
