Editor’s Thoughts.

As if we weren’t already enough on edge, yesterday the UAE shocked everyone by announcing it will leave OPEC from this Friday, 1 May, stepping away from nearly 60 years inside the cartel. For you and me the average South African consumer, this comes on top of an oil shock driven by the US–Iran war, with Bianca Botes (Citadel) reminding us that what we pay at the pump reflects shipping routes, freight and supply bottlenecks as much as the Brent price on a screen. The first thing I did when I saw the news break was ask EBnet’s Editorial Committee (yes, there are people who try “manage” my messaging 😉) what they thought the oil price would do. One said up, one said down. Doesn’t that just perfectly illustrate exactly where we are in investment markets right now?

In this context, Darpan Harar and Justin Jewell’s (Ninety One) offer their latest credit insight – beneath noisy sell‑offs, risk is concentrated in specific corners of private markets, while mainstream high yield has quietly improved in quality. Why have you not yet watched this week’s episode of Inside Private Markets?

And if all this leaves you wondering about your own retirement readiness, Laura Marais and Lieze‑mari Brink’s (Investec) deep dive on tax‑efficient retirement vehicles is a great reminder: you can’t control geopolitics, but you can control your savings rate, structures and advice relationships.

Today we also drop the latest episode of Industry Insights. ​Do we have a misery of choice when it comes to investments with more listed unit trusts than listed JSE stocks, or should we be offering trustees the ability to build bespoke solutions and customise arrangements for members? Most members just select the default offering in any case! EBnet.Stream chats to Preanka Naidoo from Sanlam Investments – Multi Manager about this conundrum – in the end her & Leon sort of agree to disagree.

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