Investing in shares indirectly

I’m a young professional who’s just started my career. I really like the idea of trading shares and attaining an equity portfolio, but seeing how expensive shares are, what options do I have for equity exposure if I can’t buy them directly?

Name withheld

Graham Lovely, wealth manager at PSG Wealth, responds: Unit trusts are the most accessible form of investment where you can gain up to 100% equity exposure within a fund. Depending on the institution you may invest as little as R500 per month or a lump sum of R10 000 to get started. There are several ways you can approach this and the best would be to speak to a qualified financial adviser because they would be able to guide you in terms of which funds to buy in accordance with your risk profile and goals.

Alternatively you could open an account online with a fund manager and specify the fund allocations yourself. Many financial institutions also offer multi-managed funds where they employ managers whose sole job it is to select and monitor funds which they then package into solutions to suit different needs.

There are many advantages to these solutions including diversification between asset classes (like equities, property, bonds and cash), across various geographies and even themes and styles of investing. You could also apply for an offshore fund which involves externalising cash or you could buy local feeder funds that feed into offshore funds. The help of an adviser would be valuable, as the investment universe is vast and can be a bit daunting.