Markets have been shaken by President Trump’s bold April 2 “Liberation Day” trade tariff announcement. While not new to tariff-driven tensions, this latest move marks a dramatic escalation in both scale and global impact. Rooted in Trump’s long-standing “America First” agenda, the sweeping measures reignite concerns over a renewed global trade war.

In our previous newsletter, Henk Myburgh, CFA, explored a mathematical tool that can help guide allocations to individual investments: the Kelly Ratio. In the final instalment of this series, we will explore how the Kelly Criterion can be extended beyond single investments to evaluate the safety of portfolios as a whole.

In our previous newsletter, Henk Myburgh, CFA, explored different approaches to allocating capital across asset classes. Now, we turn our attention to a mathematical tool that can help guide allocations to individual investments: the Kelly Ratio.

This newsletter is the first in a series of three, where Henk Myburgh, CFA, will provide an overview of different methods used to allocate capital to asset classes, listing the advantages and limitations of each and indicating the combination of methods used by Pyxis Investment Management.

This month, Ashley Knight, CFA, reviews her newsletter from 2020 on behavioural biases. She takes a look at these biases’ impact on investment behaviours and the resultant market reactions over the past few years.

In this month’s newsletter Henk Myburgh looks at target return objectives and discusses the potential pitfalls of the narrative fallacy by using investment themes. He compares Nominal and Real returns and argues that Real returns should be favoured as an investment objective.

Our personalities, mannerisms and values are all shaped by our surroundings, and our savings patterns are not an exception. Different generations exhibit different savings patterns, many of which have been moulded by the landscape in which those generations grew up.

From an investment point of view, the question is how to position appropriately for a weaker US Dollar and higher inflation environment. We believe there are a number of strategies that could be employed, one of which is implementing exposure to real or tangible assets like precious metals, specifically gold (and silver).

Is it rational to allocate less to bonds than the traditional 40% for a balanced portfolio?

With South Africa, Mexico and India’s 2024 elections now finalised, the world awaits the much anticipated outcome of the US election to be held in November this year.