Hi Mishack! Thanks for agreeing to participate in the questionnaire. Power ETF Club is honoured to be chatting with you and we would like for you to pass on your knowledge to other young South Africans who dream of creating wealth.
Firstly, who is Mishack?
Mishack basically studied Electrical engineering at Tshwane University of technology and is currently having a degree, currently working for company Eskom and is a technician. I am a trader with Standard bank CFD’s and a long-term investor with GT247.com.
What inspires Meshack?
Time inspires me because it is able to prove lots of things of different nature , seeing people of whom everyone thought they will be nothing making it inspires me a lot that I can always do more and forget about excuses and just catch bull by the horns.
What is the best decision you have ever made about finances?
Once took a loan of R20 000 at NSFAS to do my electrical engineering studies and I ended up paying R8 000 back because I managed to pass all the modules I did when I took the loan.
What is the worst decision you have made about finances.
- Buying a car first than investing the money, e.g my car total cost was R200 000 and if I bought Finbond shares beginning of January 2013 @R0.10c I would have had R8 000 000 in April 2015 when Finbond became R4.00.
What is your favorite investment class? Property? Shares? ETFs? Why?
All three of the because each investment class provide its own yield on investment, ETF’s gives me the time to stay away from the markets because they are more defensive, property gives me that constant growth that goes up year on year, shares do provide me with growth that beats inflation annually and also beats their indexes they fall in.
Please tell us how you started investing in the above mentioned investment class?
Well I started investing in MTN zakhele shares when they were offered to the public in 2010 and applications were done at the post office that was while I was a student, then after I started working it I bought Assupol, Vodacom yeboyethu shares, Sasol inzalo shares and multichoice phuthumanathi shares.
Property I bought myself 10 houses that I’m renting out to people and I own some shares on the JSE listed property stocks via the gt247.com platform.
ETF’s I own are DBXUS, DBXEU, DBXJP and DBXWD also via the gt247.com TFSA.
Do you have a trading account? If yes, which one? How did you decide to trade with your preferred trading platform?
Yes, I am using gt247.com easyequities platform, I choose it because it is easy to use and their brokerage is affordable compared to many of the other platforms e.g at easyequites R100 invested a brokerage of R0.65c is payable unlike a bank a R60 brokerage fee is payable.
What other trading platforms are available in South Africa? How do they compare with the one that you use?
ABSA, Nedbank, FNB, IG and Sanlam itrade
What portfolio of shares do you own and how did you decide on those shares? What returns have you made on your investments?
I currently hold Sanlam, Mediclinic, Sasol, Vodacom, MTN, Redefine, Santova, Finbond, and AEE, decision making on the stocks was based on diversification of the portfolio, the track record and future growth of the companies.
I currently have made 200% growth of my margin on CFD’s trades, have made 12% growth on long-term investment portfolio, and have also just made 3% growth on my ETF portfolio.
What is your definition of wealth?
Is the ability to live without bad debt but have good debt in order to make or create more financial abundance and financial freedom while sharing financial knowledge.
Why do you think South African youth dream about having an exorbitant lifestyle? i.e. Buying that expensive car on debt instead of investing.
I think the dream of having exorbitant lifestyle is due to lack of knowledge about investing and wrong role models, but I think with people like us we will spread the knowledge and education to many of the youths and other south African groups of people.
What would you say to someone who wants to open a trading account? Where do they start? Please provide a step by step guide?
I will actually tell them to gather the knowledge and familiarize themselves about trading first. Tell them to know the terms and conditions of the trading platform, basically what they offer on the platform to trade and what are the charges involved.
- Get information about trading platforms because there are many of them e.g. IG, banks, GT247 etc.
- Compare the charges of each trading platform and choose the affordable one because you don’t want your money to be exhausted on charges, it must go to your investments.
- Start with a demo account if the trading platform does offer in order to familiarize themselves with market trading or investing until they feel comfortable and confident to face the real live market, then they can open a live account and make sure they diversify their portfolio.
- Invest time in gathering knowledge about investing e.g. take part in investment forums, read books about investing, research and know exactly what their investing in, finally have discipline and patience.
Your views of the Power ETF Club? What would you like us to do in terms of educating the public about finances?
Its good step in the right direction more youths in the page have the willingness to know more about ETF’s and by them knowing they can also explain to the friend who is not part of the page and by that way the knowledge gets distributed. We can basically on Friday afternoon post something about market close e.g. what was the top story people have heard that affects investments and what’s their views concerning the story.
How do you think you can help us achieve the goal of having an investment-savvy youth?
I will by getting very close to the youth, make them understand the power behind investing, I will do this using the social media platforms like facebook , twitter, whatsapp etc where most of the youth is found to be spending lots of their time, will also schedule time to visit secondary schools, church youths, working youth to educate and assist them on how to walk the investment journey, will also do local broadcasting radio stations visits to do more education on air.
Thanks for participating in the questionnaire!
PowerMani 