A country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is the total value of all ‘final’ goods and services, that were produced within the borders of the country, during a year. Gross domestic product The equation used to calculate a nation’s gross domestic product is: GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports) [...]
Hi Francois I need to compare the official and actual inflation rates. Where do I find information about the actual inflation rate? And what’s the difference? Regards, Monica Hi Monica You ask a very interesting question. The official inflation rate in South Africa is calculated by looking at how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) changes [...]
The SARB‘s monetary policy committee (MPC) announced today that they’ve decided to leave the repo rate unchanged at 7.5%. Their decision means that the prime interest rate will remain at 11%. Most people (including myself) expected a 50 basis point cut. The SARB‘s decision is unexpected, but can be justified. Even though the latest PPI [...]
The PPI continued its downward trend with a deflation of 3.0% for May 2009 as compared to the PPI figures for May 2008. This is a surprising 5.9 percentage points lower than the annual rate of change in PPI for April 2009. The figure for May 2009 is good; the drop was more than what [...]
The CPI inflation figures for May 2009 were just released by Stats SA. As expected, the CPI inflation rate continued its downwards trend, with the headline inflation rate for May 2009 coming in at 8.0%, 0.4 of a percentage point lower than the figures for April 2009. You can check out this page if you [...]
A company’s market capitalization (also referred to as “mkt cap”, “market cap” or “capitalized value”) is the total market value of a company. A company’s market capitalization is obtained by multiplying the current share price by the total number of shares that were issued. Market capitalization A company’s market capitalization is a public opinion of [...]
Hi Francois In one of your articles you mentioned “passive income” as being preferable. Would you elaborate or perhaps give pointers on how one would go about building a passive income stream? Regards, Sabelo Hi Sabelo Passive income is income that you earn without having to do anything. I’ve written quite a bit about passive [...]
Today I have the privilege to introduce and welcome Jan Vladimir Mostert (aka Re@PeR) to Liberta’s Financial Freedom Challenge. For Jan this acceptance is just a formality. The Re@PeR is already well on his way to achieving the goals of the challenge. This is a young man who has and is making the right financial [...]
The repo rate has been lowered to 7.5%. The SARB‘s monetary policy committee (MPC) announced today that they’ve decided to cut rates by another 100 basis points. This is the fifth consecutive cut to the repo rate. The repo rate has been lowered by a total of 450 basis points, after peaking at 12%, in [...]
The PPI inflation rate for April 2009 is 2.9%, down a whopping 2.4 percentage points from what it was in March 2009. The drop is due to decreases in the yearly rate of change in PPI indices, when compared to the figures for March 2009, for almost all the PPI components – basic metals, electricity, [...]
