Much of what makes investing confusing is that we use different terms to talk about the same thing. This is so frustrating for beginners. This week, we tackle jargon head-on. Not only do we tell you which terms are used interchangeably, but also what they mean. Here are the terms we discussed:

• Stocks, equities, shares.
• Stock market vs stock exchange
• Coupons and interest.
• Debt instruments, preference shares and bonds.
• Index-tracking products, index funds, ETFs and UTs, collective investment schemes, hedge funds
• Real return, future value.
• Retirement, financial independence.
• Brokers, investment platforms.
• Property, fixed property, REITs
• Tax-free savings, TFSA, tax-free investments.
• Tax on income, tax on interest.
• Listed, on the stock market
• MDD, fact sheet

And then some stuff that's used interchangeably (sometimes by us) that's not.

• Marginal tax vs effective tax
• Pension, provident, RA, retirement fund

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André

My initial plan was to have more off-shore equity, of which I put mostly into a global equity ETF. I chose the Satrix MSCI world ETF purely due to its lower cost.

I was wondering why you chose the Ashburton 1200 global ETF for this purpose. However, now that I got my first dividends from my property ETFs, I noticed the meaning of distributions was dividends, and then realized that the Ashburton ETF pays dividends and the Satrix ETF doesn't.

In my mind, I'm thinking that if the dividends of the Ashburton cover the difference in costs between the 2 ETFs, then the Ashburton ETF will outperform Satrix MSCI world in total returns to me. Is this due to a difference in the type of ETF (feeder ETFs) that the one pays dividends or not, or is that simply a choice of the ETF creator to pass on dividends or not?

My question is if you could elaborate a bit in your thoughts comparing the Satrix MSCI world ETF vs the Ashburton 1200 global ETF regarding the dividends.

Win of the week: Leonora

I have it that Reg 28 doesn't apply to Living Annuities. I have mine with Momentum in Coreshares S&P500 and a small percentage in their money market.

(After asking, my EAC is now down to 0.77%. Still too bloody much. I take a minimum 2.5% drawdown. The fee was +/- R2000 per month, now R1700! For what?)

Zanele

I wanted to open a tax free savings account but a friend told me that after 15 years I or my Son who is 5 years old will not be able to contribute because a person is only given 15 years to utilise the tax free account. I have researched this and I got no information on the time limit, please assist if this is true or not.

I am currently investing anything from R200 to R500 a month which is what I can afford.