As a South African investor, an enormous amount of your wealth (property, share portfolios, Retirement Annuities etc.) are tied up in South African assets.

There doesn’t appear to be a Christmas rally on the cards this year for equity markets and shares have not been a great place to be invested this year.

The below graph tracks the JSE against the Dax (-17%), S&P500 (-1%), Nasdaq +1.3%), FTSE100 (-9%), ASX (-9%) and the Japanese Nikkei (-7.6%).

What is apparent from the graph above and the table below is that South African investors should ensure that they have diversified their portfolios to give them access to both local and international assets to preserve their wealth in the long run.