Allan Gray's investment platform Allan Gray’s investment platform provides you with access to all their products, as well as a focused range of unit trusts from other fund providers. The platform enables you to buy, sell and switch at no charge between the funds as your needs and objectives change. South African investors who wish to diversify their portfolios have the additional choice of funds from certain other offshore fund providers via the same platform. Allan Gray currently offer access to the following fund providers on their investment platform. You should ensure that the funds you select are appropriate for your needs and objectives. Please contact us so we can send you the relevant fund factsheets, which offer a detailed explanation of the nature of the funds and their fee structures. Click here to read more_ Please contact Kevin, email: invest@daberistic.com, if you have any queries about Allan Gray investment portfolio Source: Allan Gray Saving vs Investing, What's the Difference? The first step to getting your savings plan right is to understand that there is a significant difference between saving and investing but they have equal importance in terms of crafting a financial plan. Turning ourselves from savers to investors is vital to our long-term success but it is a transition that many of us have trouble making. The act of saving is a secure way of accumulating money. Investing on the other hand carries with it the concept of risk. As a general, rule saving is the process of placing money in interest bearing accounts with fixed or predictable returns. Investing is saving money in vehicles like Retirement Annuities, the Stock Market and Unit Trusts. These products do not earn interest but rather grow in value as a result of the underlying asset. Therefore the risk is higher because you are banking on the fact that the underlying assets of the investment keep growing in value. Fear of investing in the Stock Market or stock based investments makes people seek out very predictable and conservative, places to save. They look for guarantees that won't lose money and they actively avoid placing money in areas where its value could fluctuate. While caution when you are investing or saving is a good thing, being overly cautious could mean that your money does not grow enough to cover the effects of inflation. The solution for the fearful investor is to adopt a long- term view to savings and investing, and to use both of these vehicles to build your wealth. You can have the best of both worlds if you separate out your long term and short- term financial goals. Short-term goals such as new furniture or a vacation can be saved for in traditional savings areas such as fixed deposits or the money market. The longer-term goals, such as having sufficient money for a comfortable retirement, should be provided for separately, in more performance oriented, stock market linked investments. Click here to read more Please contact Kevin or Thato, email: invest@daberistic.com, if you have any queries about investments Source: Hollard Keep your investments on track One of the best ways to explain investment risk is by comparing it to Formula One racing. Aside from the fact that these drivers race at speeds of up to 300km/h around twists and turns on the racecourse, they constantly have to assess risks, such as when the time comes to speed up and when to slow down. A driver like Lewis Hamilton can start the race and keep going at full speed to get ahead of his competitors, but he risks the fact that his car’s engine or its tyres may not be able to hold up to the challenge for the entire race. At some point the driver in front will have to consider whether or not to continue racing at that particular speed and level, or whether to rather slow down a bit in order to spare the vehicle. Luckily, the driver has a team of experts to determine the vehicle’s optimum performance levels within which to remain. Investments in different asset classes are based on the same principle. Between 2011 and 2014, investors enjoyed being in the lead with their investments comfortably outperforming risk-free money market rates. Following the market’s decline and increasing pressure this past month however, the time has come for investors to ask themselves whether they should slow down after having been in the lead for quite some time. Is it really necessary to keep pushing investments above optimum levels in order to win? Before answering that question, it's important to clarify exactly what the optimum levels across the different asset classes are. Let's do this by using historical values and compare those to Inflation (CPI). The moment we refer to different asset classes, most investors will argue that shares offer the best vehicle to outperform inflation. What’s interesting though, is that if an investor invested parts of their capital in local shares, local bonds, property shares and money market 25 years ago (1991), it is property shares that would have performed the best before taxes. However, it is important to note that property shares also started from a low base. Shares still offer the most tax-efficient investment vehicle of the four mentioned above, but even after tax, investors would have only just won the race. Click here to read more Please contact Kevin or Thato, email: invest@daberistic.com, if you have any queries about any investments Source: Fin24 Tax after retirement In financial planning pre-retirement and the benefits of contributing to a retirement fund enjoy a lot of attention, while the optimisation of tax after retirement sometimes takes a back seat. Here are a few ways in which you can cut your tax bill.
Professor Lester advised against leaving assets intended for your spouse in an RA, as your spouse already enjoys the ‘spouse’s rebate’ – so you wouldn’t reduce the estate duty payable if your spouse is nominated as beneficiary. From an estate duty point of view, your children or any heir other than your spouse would make more sense as a beneficiary. (Bear in mind that the trustees ultimately decide who will get your client’s share in the retirement fund. The nomination will guide them, though.)
Please contact Kevin or Thato, email: invest@daberistic.com, if you have any queries about retirement funds Source: Fanews The CoverBooster special offer Buy a Discovery Life policy before 31 December 2015, and get an extra 32% life cover for no additional premium How the CoverBooster works At policy inception: At policy inception, 32% of your Life Fund will be provided to you for no additional premium. After three years: After three years, you can buy the CoverBooster life cover at a discounted rate of up to 15% depending on your Vitality status over the three year period. This is done free of underwriting. The discount for each year that you are on a particular Vitality status is as follows:
Example: If you are on Silver for three years you would be able to purchase the additional cover provided by the CoverBooster at a discount rate of 9% to standard rates.
Technical details
Source: Discovery Three large open medical schemes have announced an average contribution increase of close to 10 percent or above for next year, following similar increases by four large open schemes in last week But members of three open schemes have been spared high increases: their medical schemes have announced average increases of between 5.4 and 7.5 percent.
Few weeks ago, Fedhealth announced an overall weighted average increase of 9.9 percent for next year across all options, with option increases ranging from minus 7.5 percent to 14.5 percent. Alexander Forbes Healthcare reports that Medshield has announced an average increase of 9.6 percent and Topmed has announced an 11.3-percent average increase, with its option increases ranging from nine to 13 percent. Three other large open schemes have announced lower increases: Sizwe will increase its contributions by an average of 7.5 percent, Genesis Medical Scheme by 5.5 percent, and Hosmed by 5.4 percent, according to the healthcare brokerage. The increases on Sizwe options range from 3.94 percent to 9.8 percent, Hosmed’s range from 3.3 percent to eight percent, and the Genesis option increases are from 3.6 percent to 6.8 percent, Alexander Forbes reports. The brokerage also records the average increase for next year on the restricted scheme for local authority employees, LAHealth, as six percent, with option increases ranging from 5.5 percent to nine percent. Genesis maintains its trend of having increases well below the overall scheme average. The scheme says it has also made significant enhancements to dentistry, external prosthetic and endoscopy benefits. Genesis chief executive Brian Watson says that about one-third of households with medical scheme cover spend more than 10 percent of their monthly income on medical scheme contributions. He says the debilitating effects of the continual above-inflation increases, as measured against the Consumer Price Index, often result in members downgrading their level of health cover or abandoning it altogether. Watson says Genesis has maintained low increases because it is one of the few open medical schemes in South Africa that is self-administered. It practises prudent risk management and fiscal discipline, he says. Fedhealth has announced that, over the next three years, it will simplify its options. Jeremy Yatt, the principal officer of Fedhealth, says the scheme will, at the end of three years, have an option range that shows a natural progression from in-hospital cover for a prescribed minimum benefit level of care only, up to unlimited cover and a choice of the level of day-to-day funding in line with members’ needs. This year, Fedhealth began to phase out its out-of-hospital expense benefit, which is paid from the risk pool. Yatt says none of the 10 largest open medical schemes other than Fedhealth pays day-to-day benefits from a risk pool; they all offer day-to-day cover from medical savings accounts, with some options having an above-threshold benefit that comes into effect when the savings account is exhausted. Yatt says Fedhealth will replace the out-of-hospital expense benefit with enhanced savings levels, which means that members will have more day-to-day spending than they currently enjoy with a out-of-hospital expense benefit/medical savings account combination. A great benefit of the savings account is that any unused balance at the end of the year carries over to the following year, while the out-of-hospital expense benefit did not carry over. Fedhealth has also simplified in-hospital co-payments across its options and has introduced a loyalty programme in partnership with Sanlam: Sanlam Reality. Other medical schemes that have announced contribution increases for next year to date are:
Remember that you should not make too much of comparisons between the percentage increases on different schemes, as the base contributions to which the increases are applied vary widely across schemes and options, as do the benefits and the increases in benefits for next year. Written by Laura du Preez |
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