The Preamble

For the background to this series of posts: here, here and here. And the summary:

1. Small investors have some investing options.
2. You can invest occasionally in lump sums (the once-off investors) or monthly through debit orders (the monthly investors).
3. As for things to invest in, I’m a general fan of low-cost equity-index-tracker ETFs (as is Warren Buffett). But there are other possibilities as well.
4. This series of posts is there to see which would work out well.
5. Then there are some indicators at the end. Because why not.

Let me begin with a small disclaimer – Telkom and I have not had the best of mornings together. Their ADSL exchange has been blowing hot and cold on me – as indicated by the flickering of my skype icon, and the total failure to load of any webpage.

So if I sound irritated, apologies in advance.

A look at the week everyone had:

Once-Off Investors

In pictures:

Gold bugs? Does it burn?

In numbers:

Monthly Investors

In pictures:

In numbers:

The Indicators

The exchange rate…is weakening. Or, rather, the US dollar is generally strengthening, which is giving metals traders “headaches“:

The stock market is still correcting itself…

Although that’s really just in ZAR terms, because in real terms, not so much:

10 Year government bond yields are sort of staying where they were:

But commodities…

Gold and Platinum are finding new lows. Which is presumably due to that strong US dollar – after all, if traders are treating bullion as an alternative investment to dollars, and dollars are on the up, then obviously you get:

 

But at least for the gold and platinum mines, the falling prices were offset by the weakening exchange rate:

Oil prices in the world continue to plummet. Interestingly, there are rumours that this is a strategic ploy by the Saudis to render much of US oil economically inaccessible by shredding their profit margins (for an explanation of how that would work, I wrote about the fun of oil reserves in The Petrodollar Collapse). But here’s the graph:

 

Although based on the exchange rate, that will have no impact on us:

That’s all for now.

Until next week!

Rolling Alpha posts opinions on finance, economics, and the corporate life in general. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rollingalpha.