Starting young with Anna Machaka

On our EasyEquities blog we regularly share stories of how EasyVSTRs are being EasyHeroes in their communities in their own capacities, advocating for financial literacy and championing the topic in their own way.

Anna Machaka (23) is among the EasyVSTRs who have also been working on securing the bag through her investments, while at the same time sharing her knowledge with those around her and in her community.

Her profession is within the engineering field (where she holds a degree) as managing director at a civil engineering firm. Human capital and financial literacy is where her passion lies. One of the initiatives she has taken to bring financial literacy to children is through a book she wrote that’s aimed at teaching kids about investing and money. According to her, the book is an inspiration from real life stories of her son (Pako), who one day came back home with a R10 note and wanted to buy chocolate.

“Every time he received money, he would want to spend it. It was a recurring pattern,” she explains. “I was sceptical to channel his behaviour towards money at first. I took a leap of faith and explained it to him using his favourite thing — McDonald’s. I told him if he bought shares in McDonald’s, every time he or anybody else eats a BigMac his money would increase. It took a couple of tries, and we are well on our way to getting it right. These lessons will help him to become a much more financially independent child and adult in future”

What Anna hopes to achieve with this, is for the book to become an incredible tool that adults can use to have money conversations with children and help them understand that they can be in control of their finances at an early age.
“I hope more children will start to own investment portfolios. Moreover I hope with Little Money Egghead (LME) we can break the stigma that you need to be a millionaire to start investing. Essentially, we should band together to create the best generation of financially independent individuals.”

As an EasyVSTR, Anna’s portfolio is diversified across various sectors; a few of her favourite companies include Capitec, Bidcorp, Exxaro, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA NV and Aspen Pharmacare holdings. Before she started her investment journey, Anna explained that she extensively educated herself on how a company makes its money and current trends. Some of the metrics she looks at are:

• Earnings ratio — the current share price relative to its per share earning.
• Beta (a number used to measure the company's volatility) – to perform a risk analysis

“I’ve recently started educating myself on ETFs. My favourite thing about them is that your risk is spread and one ETF can hold various shares. Some even qualify for tax-free savings. I love Cloud Atlas Big 50 ex-SA, FNB top 40, new funds equity momentum and Satrix 40.”

Anna recognises that young investors have the luxury of time and should take advantage of it. Time allows you to ride out the up and down volatility of the markets, learn as you go - starting with whatever amount you've got, and take more risks.

Immerse yourself and your money in the art of compounding. Make your money work for you not the other way around.

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