WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown podcast

💸 Know Your Fees: Effective Annual Cost (EAC)

Not all fees are created equal — EAC is the real number to watch.
Applies to retirement products, LISPs, and unit trusts — not to stockbrokers.
📊 Understand the difference:
- TER (Total Expense Ratio)
- TIC (Total Investment Cost)
- EAC (includes platform + advisor + product fees)
🍏🍏 Apples-to-apples: Compare funds using EAC.
🎯 Target an EAC between 1.1%–1.5%.
💬 Negotiate! Advisor and platform fees are often flexible.
🔍 Beware: Some brokers refuse to give the number — that’s a red flag.
❗ Platform fees: Flat > Percentage. Otherwise, your 1% could become R100,000 in fees!

Weekend U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites 🔥 led to… a shrug from the oil market.
📈 Oil hit $81.40 early Monday, then crashed to $67.70 by Wednesday.
That’s a $14 drop, nearly 20% down — massive.
🌍 Global market awash with oil:
- 🇻🇪 Venezuela, 🇮🇷 Iran, 🇷🇺 Russia all pumping through sanctions
- ⛽ OPEC+ supply increases kicking in soon
⛴️ Straits of Hormuz risk overstated — markets unconvinced
📉 Oil heading to $60? Possibly.

💬 Chat with Old Mutual: rotating out of gold, into PGMs
🔼 Platinum at 10-year highs, last seen in Oct 2014
🇿🇼 🇿🇦 Platinum from Southern Africa; 🇨🇦 🇷🇺 Palladium elsewhere
📦 Stockpiles, especially palladium, still working through
🚗 EVs: Now only expected to be 40% of sales by 2035
- Existential crisis for PGMs? Delayed… for now
🧊 Recycling paused — not worth it at these prices
🥇 Pick your poison: Impala, Northam, Sibanye Stillwater*…
- 📦 Sibanye with PGMs, palladium & gold exposure

🧲 Pullback to support around R3,330/g
Could go as low as R3,200 — but not rolling over
💡 Structural shift in how investors (especially in developed markets) view gold
🛡️ Post-2022 shift: Central banks hedging against future sanctions with more gold

Simon Brown

* I hold ungeared positions.

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