We hope that you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy during these challenging and uncertain times and want to assure you that looking after your financial wellbeing remains our number one priority.

When it comes to the health of your investment portfolio the downturn in the stock market that coincided with the onset of the pandemic, as well as the subsequent global recovery, were important reminders that it is imperative to avoid short-term focused and emotion-based changes to one’s investment strategy. Fear is an extremely powerful emotion and fear about the financial markets often leads to knee-jerk reactions that can cause significant financial losses.

Warren Buffett is quoted as having said: “Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive. It is important not to get caught up in the madness but to stick to your homework. We’ve made a lot of money in stocks over time, but there’s been years when we’ve lost money, too.” Buffet’s investment approach is based around making informed decisions while taking a long-term view, then sticking with those decisions through market turmoil. It is an unfortunate fact that investors who panicked during the recent downturn and exited the market ended up losing out on the recovery that followed.

In this issue we share information about the differences between two strategies that investors can use to generate a return on their investments, namely passive and active investment management. We take a look at the state of autonomous driving, technology that promises to be the most disruptive advancement since the invention of the automobile, and investigate the proposition that ‘dark stores’ could be the future of retail across the globe.

Enjoy this issue!

Best regards

Johann Joubert