Previously know as Questions and Answers, The Investor deals with general investment questions put forward by its readers and offers other useful advice. It is available free of charge by email each week by signing up for a trial of our Email service. Back-issues from August 2000 onwards can be found here. From January 2005 onwards, issues are posted as PDF files.
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While Richard Cluver makes every effort to reply in this column to all email queries, it is not always possible to immediately reply to every one, particularly to those that might not be of general interest to all readers or which might require a long and complicated response.

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2001

Computer Freezes While ShareFinder Is Updating

ShareFinder Performance Figures
Once a year we look back on ShareFinder's long-term recommendations as published in the Prospects monthly newsletter in order to determine how well the programme has performed.

ShareFinder Costs Queried

New Fundamental Group
We have introduced a new fundamental group called "No Dividends".

Paying for Fundamental Data
Mr MW received a notice advising him that his annual Fundamental Data service fee of R200 was due, but he thought that a purchase of SF4 came with a one year subscription for the fundamental data.

Dealing on the Forex Market
I am interested in dealing on the Forex (currencies) market. Could you perhaps assist me as to where/how I can get training?"

A Discussion of Medium Term Trading

Why Companies do not appear in the Fundamental List
Mr SB wants to know why companies such as Anglos, Billiton and Old Mutual do not appear in ShareFinder's fundamental list.

Gold Conspiracy Theory
Mr SW has been reading the GATA story which he describes as "... a lovely conspiracy theory that is so exciting you want to believe it."

Offshore Investments
Mr LM writes that there has been quite a bit of emphasis on offshore investments of late and wonders wheher I consider them to have any merit?

I lost R32000!
About 2 years ago I invested about R60 000.00 with Aurica Financial Services who invest on the stock exchange. I felt they were more experienced than I was at the time. Two months ago I gave them notice that I wanted my money back as I was not satisfied with their performance.

Mass and Velocity indicators explained

Printing Graphs in ShareFinder 4
Several programme users have asked how they can print out ShareFinder 4 graphs.

About Property Loan Stock
Property Loan Stock are shares in which the income is generated by a combination of rents and interest on debentures. As such, unlike ordinary shares whose dividends are tax free, these generate an income that is partially taxable in your hands.

SATRIX 40
For those who do not know about the Satrix 40, it is a derivative very similar to a unit trust which tracks the Alsi 40, that is the index representing the top 40 shares on the JSE Securities Exchange SA.

Aiming for high dividends
"I have accumulated some capital and now wish to start investing in the market. I think in the beginning I would look for shares which historically pay high regular dividends and reinvest the dividends back into the market."

Relative Sector Strengths
"The Sharefinder Program has a section which lists the relative strength of the various sectors compared to the JSE overall index. Can this be used to identify the sectors with shares that have better potential especially for trading purposes?"

International shares in ShareFinder's database are a day late
Two clients recently complained that the prices in ShareFinder's database of the NASDAQ and other foreign shares and indices were reflecting the date of the following day.

Interpreting the Mass indicator first
Mr PI wondered why his interpretation of ShareFinder's Mass and Velocity indicators different from ShareFinder's.

Accolades for the ShareFinder Tutorial

Sources of data analysed by ShareFinder
If a share market analysis computer programme can be likened to a car, then the data it analyses is the petrol.

What is the most profitable type of bond to invest in and trade?

Considering traded volumes
You have often indicated that volumes are extremely important to the short-term trader. What is the ideal volume when considering a particular trade?

Comparison of online brokering services
Mr AW offered us the benefit of his research into online brokers.

Velocity as a yardstick of overall trend
The price velocity shown on the JSE-IND index long term chart which is used I understand as the yardstick for the overall trend of the market has been flat at 44/45 since the beginning of August. Why therefore does it say that the price velocity is rising fast?

Why is x not a buy recommendation?
Looking at the long term recommendations of ShareFinder, there are three recommendations (Sasol, Gencor, Aflife), but browsing through individual shares, a share like Messina rates as a "buy, buy, buy". My question: Why does Messina not appear in the recommendations window?

Why does a sell signal not always follow a buy signal?
Mr JG has for the past 9 months meticulously printed the daily recommendations made by the Trader programme and has found that several Sell recommendations have been issued without there being a corresponding Buy recommendation within this time period.

Missing files when updating ShareFinder's database
Mr NB complained that there were "missing files" in the "Sharenet database update" window.

Why do people lose money?
On a recent trip to London I bought a book on spread betting in the financial markets. According to this book most people lose money. Now this puzzles me. I can hardly believe that you could lose considering the sophisticated technical analysis which can be achieved.

Why do the Mass & Velocity indicators change?
Can you please explain why the pattern of your Mass & Velocity graphs change in shape. One would expect the historical part of these graphs to remain the same but they seem to change with time?

Cumulative and distribution buying
What is the difference between, and significance of, cumulative and distribution buying?

ShareFinder Files in C:\ID
Normally when the daily update is received from Investordata, it is placed into the ID folder to update the SF program. After the update the ID folder only has a few files in it: Holiday, etc. I see now the ID folder has many files left after the normal updates.

Mr KW asked if it would it be possible to explain how to do bond value calculations.