2008 April » Investment Postcards from Cape Town

Archive for April, 2008

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Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Video: Paul Volcker on the “mother of all crises”

This post comprises a number of must-see video clips recorded during former Fed chairman Paul Volcker’s address of last week to the Economic Club of New York on the credit crises and related matters. Volcker, who headed up the Fed from 1979 to 1987, said the credit crisis is the “mother of all crises” and the modern financial system has “failed the test of the market-place”.

1 Comment » - Posted in Money, Markets, Investment by Prieur du Plessis

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Underappreciated!

By Philipp Wörz
All of us have had moments of regret.
Thoughts like, “I should have bought that beachfront property in 2001”, “Why didn’t I buy that wine farm in Stellenbosch” or “Why did I marry that ogre?’ may have crossed your mind. The same goes for financial investments and, in that department – nodisrespect - I […]

No Comments » - Posted in South Africa by Prieur du Plessis

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

SARB ups by 0.5% as CPIX concern deepens

By Cees Bruggemans
The SARB today announced another 0.5% increase in interest rates, with prime set to increase to 15%. This is the ninth such increase since mid-2006.
With CPIX inflation at 9.4% and still likely to rise further, pushed along by rising commodity prices (oil and food especially), a weaker rand (16% down this year) and […]

No Comments » - Posted in South Africa by Prieur du Plessis

Monday, April 14th, 2008

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (April 7 – 13, 2008)

After the sense of relative calm of the previous week, investors again had to stomach “a thrill a minute” during the past week, with the recent stock market rally reversing course as sentiment took a turn for the worse on the back of the familiar themes of deteriorating economic data, housing woes, and concerns about further asset write-downs in the financial sector. Read all about this in my regular weekly blog post, highlighting some thought-provoking news items and quotes from market commentators during the past week.

1 Comment » - Posted in Money, Markets, Investment by Prieur du Plessis

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Meeting with my investment mentor – Richard Russell

I have just had my first one-on-one discussion with the legendary Richard Russell. This was a truly memorable encounter as I have been subscribing to his newsletter, the Dow Theory Letters, for the past 25 years, and I consider Mr Russell as my mentor in the common-sense faculty of investment. Mr Russell’s outlook for the stock market is also included in this post.

17 Comments » - Posted in Money, Markets, Investment by Prieur du Plessis

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Jacks’s House

Source: Tom Toles, The Washington Post, April 4, 2008.

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No Comments » - Posted in Humor by Prieur du Plessis

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Reuters SA Survey of Economists

The March edition of the Reuters South African Survey of Economists has just been published.
SA economic confidence, as measured by the Reuters monthly Econometer, recovered in March from its lowest levels, since June 2004. (The Econometer is a measure of economic sentiment drawn from a monthly poll of forecasts by leading economists in South […]

No Comments » - Posted in South Africa by Prieur du Plessis

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Facing up to the “R” word

Source: Tom Toles, The Washington Post, April 6, 2008.

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No Comments » - Posted in Humor by Prieur du Plessis

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

New blog features & a personal appeal

A few interesting new features have been added to the Investment Postcards blog site over the past few weeks. This short post briefly describes these, and also asks readers for a favor …

4 Comments » - Posted in Money, Markets, Investment by Prieur du Plessis

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

The Bear Necessities

Here is a specially rewritten version of The Bare Necessities, originally from Disney’s The Jungle Book, which follows the tribulations recently experienced by a number of investment banks.
Where are the Bear necessities?
No longer trading equities,
Got buried in a landslide of subprime.
I mean the Bear necessities -
Those benchmark Gilts and Treasuries
Forgotten in a sea of banking […]