Lesegisha Mthiyane wants the freedom to enjoy life and do things he loves like volunteer teaching. He is passionate about sharing financial literature, including some of his own, with everyone. This is where EasyEquities comes in: Lesegisha has been part of the EasyCommunity since the Beta phase 4 years ago.
"My name is Lesegisha Mthiyane, I'm a 26 year old post graduate student at Monash University completing my honors in accounting. I'm originally from Limpopo and previously worked for the Office of the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA)."
"I found out about EasyEquities from a friend about 4 years ago while I was using another bank's share platform (wouldn't recommend that platform to my enemy). He had heard me going on about investing and thought I should try it out to see if it was legit. It was still in beta (testing mode) so I had to wait until the official launch."
The first share Lesegisha bought was BRAIT at R250 per share! Along with Sibanye at R18 (before the rally to R72 “Yay”).
In the US he's a fan of Square, Box, Canopy Growth Corporation (Canada), Celgene, Alibaba, Tractor Supply Company, Verizon, Visa and Walmart.
"My first ETF's were the SatrixResi and SatrixDivi (I now hold three core ETF's ).
R6 250 000 is my magic number. In a government bond or ETF that pays 8% per annum, that's where I see myself in future."
Lesegisha continues, "My motivation to start investing (more like my financial education) came from the Rich Dad series back in grade 9. I wanted the freedom to enjoy life and do the things I love; including volunteer teaching back home."
I wondered about what unique insights he could give me. To which he replied. "I don't think I have any unique insights as much as I have read some very enjoyable material. Of interest my favorite reads were both of Benjamin Grahams books - The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis as well as Nassim Talebs Fooled By Randomness. More recently, South Africa's Sam Beckbessinger's Manage Your Money like a F*cking grown up is my number 1 recommendation."
Lesegisha follows The FatWalletShow by JustOneLap and generally enjoys their user friendly material the most. He believes that, "Simon Brown has overtaken Kiyosaki by a margin and is by far one of the most underrated guru's in the help yourself space." He also does his own research using the methodologies from Ben Graham but generally reads every financial houses' research just to make sure he's not duplicating his own work. These are his favourite reads - PSG, SmallCap.co.za, Cannon Asset Managers, Ross Malts Dividend Tycoon and Stealthy Wealth.
We also asked Lesegisha, “Where to from here?” His answer was, “Keep contributing to my portfolio and the financial sector literature at large. For the most part I'll be sitting on my hands so as to not interrupt compounding as it does it's job with my money.”
A last note from him, "I wish more South Africans from where I'm from would leverage the available resources (EasyEquities being head and shoulders above anything out there) at our disposal to pull themselves out of the hole we find ourselves in, self inflicted or not. It's now more possible than ever. But if they choose not to, we'll come get them.
No man shall be left behind!"
Connect with Lesegisha on Twitter @LesegishaM