Aspire Wealth Management and Old Mutual Wealth hosted a business talk at the Birchwood Hotel and O R Tambo Conference Centre on February 12.
Grace van Zyl and Andrew Salmon addressed guests on the economic and investment environment of 2018.
Salmon highlighted the benefits of long-term investments and the consistent returns from the date of investment.
“Returns can go up and down, depending on the economy,” he said.
Salmon explained extensively how the growth of South Africa’s economy has fared in comparison with the global economy.
An example he gave was how the rand strengthens as the dollar weakens.
Salmon also touched on how politics can influence the economy.
“The rand strengthened when Cyril Ramaphosa was voted in as the next ANC president,” he said.
According to Salmon, this would mean an increase in income, which would ultimately mean consumers would want to do more shopping than they would have done in the past year.
Salmon’s talk was followed by van Zyl’s presentation on having a financial plan as opposed to “investing” in Bitcoin.
She said Bitcoin is a virtual and decentralised currency that is unregulated.
Bitcoin is based on computer algorithms that are solved by people connected to the system.
These people are referred to as “miners” and receive a percentage of the Bitcoins that a person has invested once the algorithm has been solved.
“It is an extremely volatile and high-risk system that is unpredictable,” she said.
“The price of the Bitcoin is based on the demand. If there is a high demand, people will pay more for a Bitcoin; if it is low, they will pay less.”
Van Zyl said Bitcoin is a completely anonymous system.
“You are just a number,” she said.
She encouraged people not to go on what the man on the street says, but to seek advice from their financial manager before they take their savings and invest them in Bitcoin.
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