#17: Warning! We say "ethics"

WARNING: This episode contains some insipid moralising. Vomiting might ensue.

Please allow me a moment to be a little philosophical. It’s my birthday week. This can be your gift to me. Last week I featured the NewFunds NewSA ETF. It’s an ETF that invests in companies based on their empowerment ratings. As our bestie Nerina Visser points out in the article, the ETF has a few glitches. It’s over exposed to the local market, because locally-listed international companies aren’t required to be BBBEE compliant. The weighting methodology leads to problematic exposures. All things considered, it’s not the best investment choice.

However, it gives me the feels. I want to live in a country where the workforce reflects the demographics. It means 51% of the workforce would be women. You can guess why I care about that one. Black South Africans would make up 80% of every team. This really matters to me. Should my investments reflect that, even if it’s not the most rational financial choice?

I’d love your thoughts on this. Are you an ethical investor? Tell us at [e-mail].

Then, finally, we get to some questions we received after our retirement podcast. We consider two questions in this episode:

1. If you only had R30 000 per year, should you put it in a tax-free account or a retirement annuity?
2. Should you consider in-house products that don’t offer a tax benefit if the fees are really low?

If you love us, please tell iTunes. 

Kris