Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - MoneyChief

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
1
Shares / Re: Offshore broke4s
« on: August 22, 2019, 10:53:32 am »
Thanks conradl, I found another company that might offer a card, https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/card, looks quite promising.

2
Shares / Re: Readjusting portfolio.
« on: August 20, 2019, 03:49:37 pm »
I've just managed to sell a property after it being a long time on the market and in light of the comments above where would you invest a large lump sum today as I have no intention of buying another property?

I am in the same boat. Usually during a recession investors buy lots of government bonds, so I am leaning towards a portfolio that has a good percentage bonds.

3
Shares / Re: Offshore broke4s
« on: August 20, 2019, 03:41:41 pm »
With interactive brokers I see they can provide a debit card. Does anybody know if they will ship the card to SA?

4
Shares / Re: Getting Started Portfolio
« on: August 20, 2019, 11:01:52 am »
Just my opinion. This has worked for me.

1. Save up one months expenses in a savings account like absa depositor plus.
2. Pay off all debt except home loan if you have one.
3. Top up your savings account until you can cover 6 months worth of expenses.
4. Invest 15% of your pay for pension purposes.
    a) If your company does a match of contributions, contribute to get the full match
    b) Max out TFSA with money that is left to make up to 15%
    c) Contribute to company pension with money that is left to make up to 15%
    d) If no company pension, contribute to RA to make up to 15%
5. Save for a house deposit if you want to buy a house instead of renting.
6. Open a taxable investment account and invest any extra money there. Try and invest globally as the South African market is very small.

Money rules I follow:
Never buy a car that is more than 25% of your annual income.
Never buy a house or rent where the monthly payment is more than 25% of your take home pay.
Never lend money to friends and family, instead give money to them if you can afford it.
Make sure you have disability insurance.
Make sure you have gap cover.

5
Shares / Re: Artificial intelligence and machine learning Unit trusts
« on: July 31, 2017, 09:49:59 am »
I did some artificial intelligence stuff at university, Neural nets, hidden markov models, gaussian mixed models, etc. I think they are nice toys for academics, but not so good at making money in the stock market. The short and medium term movements of the stock market is random (doing a Fourier transform on a typical stock price results in a flat line, just like white noise...), it is only in the long term that the market follows earnings. Even if the market is slightly non-random, the profits gets eaten up by transaction costs so you end up flat or negative.

6
Shares / Re: Awesome Graphs
« on: July 25, 2017, 03:46:59 pm »

Imagine all the electricity wasted on this bitcoin speculation and mining.

Not wasted, contributing to Eskoms electricity demand.

Bitcoin mining -> Electricity burned -> Coal power station -> Co2 in the atmosphere -> Globe warms up -> heat trapped in sea -> Coral bleaching and death -> no more scuba diving the great barrier reef -> :-(

7
Shares / Re: Awesome Graphs
« on: July 25, 2017, 11:24:48 am »
Yes, gamers are bitching like mad , shelves are empty top grhx cards sold out at places . . .  :frustrated:  :wall: but also read they also got some contract where there technology goes into cars.

Imagine all the electricity wasted on this bitcoin speculation and mining.

8
Finding a friend you trust over there would be a quick solution. Do you still have contacts there?
I see that ABSA offers international accounts in GBP, USD or EUR. Only requirement is R5000 equivalent minimum balance to be maintained. Seems like it might be a good option. I hope that DeGiro will then accept payments from the account.

ABSA has a couple of offshore options, the cheaper ones cannot make payments to third parties (such as your broker). I tried to get more information about their multicurrency account (since it was a bit more expensive and could be a full transactional account), but I got passed between the departments without any resolution.

The best option I have been able to find so far is the FNB channel islands bank account. I haven't applied for it yet. I am still trying to find something better.

9
Hi MoneyChief,
When traveliing I have used a Maxroam simcard. Its was a UK number. I bought it at Flightcentre.
Hope that helps.

Thanks, will give it a try.

10
Local or foreign?

It's pretty hard to beat easy equities on ease of use and fees locally. For foreign, the cheapest is de giro. No minimum, no monthly fees, but you need a US or EU bank account.

Patrick, Quick one!

I have a Netherlands account open which I use to administer a pretty much US-based investment portfolio

I have this as I lived there several years  ( now back in SA )

Looking at De Giro , definitely look like the best fee structure vs a bank

To sign up though they were asking for EU or UK address ? are there ways around that?

I am in the same boat, one other thing that bothered me. Lets say you manage to open the account, then a couple of years later something goes wrong with your EU bank account for example they close it because you are not using it enough, etc. As far as I know De Giro will not allow you to withdraw money from a different account than the one you used to deposit money with. Then you are screwed.

11
Finding a friend you trust over there would be a quick solution. Do you still have contacts there?

My cousin lives in the UK, but I am not sure how he can help.

I see that ABSA offers international accounts in GBP, USD or EUR. Only requirement is R5000 equivalent minimum balance to be maintained. Seems like it might be a good option. I hope that DeGiro will then accept payments from the account.

12
I'm with Nationwide in the UK and they do offer offshore accounts based in Isle of Man so check their website

Thanks, will give it a try.

13
Shares / Help needed with overseas bank account so I can invest there
« on: July 08, 2017, 03:55:18 pm »
I have a bank account with a UK bank. They have a banking app that I have installed on my phone and it used to work fine, but now requires re-authentication. To authenticate I have to give them a UK cell number to send the authentication code to via SMS. My UK sim card stopped working a while ago due to inactivity.

If I can get a UK sim that works in SA I should be able to get the cell phone banking app working again. Anybody know where I can get a UK sim in SA? If not, does anybody know how I can open another overseas bank account without physically travelling overseas?

I know Investec offers a UK account for £10 a month, but only for private banking customers, which I am not.

Alternatively does anybody know of an overseas investment broker that would accept deposits directly from a South African bank account?

14
Shares / Re: Net Worth
« on: June 30, 2017, 03:06:44 pm »
Realistically my house has no worth to my estate until I die nor my car as it is a depreciating asset so it does not constitute any part of what I can net wealth

Are you serious? Have you been reading Robert Kiyosaki books?

15
Shares / Re: Net Worth
« on: June 29, 2017, 01:43:15 pm »
To keep it simple, I'd seek answers to the following

State your...

1. House Value
2. Car Value
3. Outstanding Mortgage and Car Loan.

Asset Net Worth = 1 + 2 - 3

4. Cash
5. Pension/Provident and or RA (Sum it all up)
6. Total investments (Shares, unit trusts, bonds) Value

Net Worth = Asset Net Worth + (4+5+6).

Age
Occupation
Still Working or Retired.

I think not to make it too complex, that should cover it.

What about businesses you own?

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6