South Africa located at the bottom of the African continent is one of those wonderful countries for the most part. In travel magazines, the sites and sounds to be seen in the country will amaze you. Then comes the politics. At the present time, the President,Jacob Zuma is becoming much wealthier than his Presidential paycheck should be enhancing his bank accounts. A few weeks ago, the President shuffled his cabinet to ensure those that have said no to him are on the outside looking in. Those that will say yes to his dealings are on the inside and doing. The result of the Cabinet shuffle sent the South African rand (dollar) downwards and equally important the stock market has gone down.

In every book you read, the experts will tell you to buy low and sell high. The question is when do you buy low? If you take the politics out of the equation and with President Zuma it is very hard to, but if you try, then some of the South Africa’s largest and best companies are priced much lower than they traditionally trade. This maybe your buying opportunity because if you do not normally trade on South African stocks, you should wait and do research. The key is to figure what you are going to buy – an ETF? a mutual fund? or the bank and other well capitalized companies. The situation will not change tomorrow, but at some point sanity will come back and you can profit by buying companies such as FirstRand Ltd and Barclays Africa Group Ltd as noted in the Bloomberg News article written by Renee Bonorchis.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, no one wants an recession but in reality, the economy moves through waves with highs and lows. The best time to buy is in a recession, the best time to sell is in the boom, however most of us will never get the timing correct. The key then is to ensure your portfolio generates cash to be a ready buyer of quality stocks which pay a dividend. If you are not living off the dividends, you can reinvest or accumulate the cash to buy quality stocks at lower prices (some companies will be rising, some are lower for lots of reasons.