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Anyone else nervous about this etf?

I'm still holding, regrettably, but more out of hope.

Including the dismal resource shares (don't bank on divs from these) - roughly half these companies are very much dependent on SA Inc, which in my considered view is fast going down the cr@pper 

Thanks for sharing  very cool. Wish you could bundle it up and sell it to me as an ETF!

Sjoe, 31 stocks @ I guess initial 3% initial equal weighting - I'd have to get used to that. But ja, on a R1M investment that's 30 000+ each so at least you're not hit with minimum fees when purchasing. Obviously the product of a lot of time & dedication.

@Ron. The favorite ETF's on this forum are STXIND and DIVTRX. (so far that I see).
The STXIND has the top 25 Co's and weighted by market capitalization.
The DIVTRX has about the same number of Co's but the management chooses Co's that keep increasing their dividends.
Co's that keep increasing their dividends are normally the ones that are growing from strength to strength and have good fundamentals and management.
I will post some charts here for comparison. Although my favorite one is DIVTRX, it is only a year and a half old and STXIND is skewed by the developments with SAB that has a heavy weighting in it.

Thanks Orca. I have a R130G position in DIVTRX after reading about it here. They've recently increased their holdings with the rebalancing & a number of "iffy" shares have entered (mining shares over 8%) which I'm not too pleased about but that's how the cookie crumbles. But I agree with the approach and that's ultimately how to evaluate an ETF.

I was briefly in the INDI & got out when I read somewhere that if it was a stock market it would be the most expensive in the world. Well, it's expensive for a reason - its constituents are absolute winners and, crucially, have international operations. Still, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to split/replace an investment in this ETF with a successful, moderately aggressive fund manager like 36One? If you believe a correction / bear market is not far away, high growth stocks will fall further & you probably want a brain to handle the fallout better. In a bull market ETFs outperform most fund managers, but in a bear market the pros have an upper hand. Just a thought.

*Ah, just picked up your reply now Patrick. Yep, will probably have to speak to someone I can trust, but folks around here also seem to know a thing or two - and it's gratifying to know there are/were others in a similar situation.

THANKS for your thoughtful response gcr - your points are all very fair and valid. I guess a financial advisor would be my next stop, but I know there are some pretty astute forumites here who I'm sure would be able to provide some direction as well with level-headed, common sense advise - based, of course, on my particuar circumstances, which I'll detail below. Right now I'm going in circles with conflicting thoughts, which of course only increases my anxiety (beer helps though). Obviously any advise will be treated as just that; I realise that all paths carry risks, especially in these markets. Ok here's my situation.. I know people will scoff at my tight budget but Mr Dividend's earlier post has provided some encouragement!

I'm 46, unemployed, live alone and lead a frugal lifestyle, but probably not frugal enough. I'm debt free, own my home & an investment property which brings in a rent of R5700pm. My expenses come to R13 200 (no medical aid etc), leaving a shortfall of R7 500. I have savings of R1 200 000 & that's it. It's sitting mostly in my broker's account earning piddly interest until it's told where to go, but it includes positions in Satrix SWX (50G); Coreshares Div Aristocrats (130G); Discovery (75G) & Balwin (25G).

I know that any advise will be accompanied by cold hard figures that will be discouraging but I'm inspired by folks like Mr Dividend who's been able to make ends meet by building a dividend portfolio. Seems that this is my best option? The alternative is to bank, say, 4 years expenses to account for market volatility, which will allow a wider scope of investment - ETFs like the Indi25 but particularly international ETFs like the dbx trackers, and perhaps an asset manager like 36One to manage the rest?

Extra income - when my tenant's lease expires in 5 months I'll move there and rent out my current home which should bring in an extra 2000. The investment property's yielding 6% after expenses (based on worth of about R620 000) and will probably sell it, especially if things go horribly wrong. I'd get more for my current home but would hate to let it go. And my boet may be able to pay me 2000 pm in the new year to help him out a bit - so that R7 500 shortfall will be reduced by 2 to 4 grand.

So that's my life as it stands. Decisions, decisions. Again, any broad, or detailed advice based on these figures would be most appreciated!

Quite a few mice & rats sneaking in on the rebalancing, mainly resource shares desperately keeping up dividends to appease nervous investors. Wouldn't happen in the States where membership requires a solid 25-year track record.

Oh well, joys of investing in a tracker fund - and tinkering with the formula - on NAV for instance - would rule out small growth stocks.