River Rat

They have indeed just looped back onto the route and their detour seems to have added to the distance so let's hope it's just a time penalty. Two years back I drove some of the route from Loxton to Bloem and could see from the tracks where guys went off route, but it became pretty clear after a while that there were no new tire tracks and you could see where the guys turned around. These guys just bombed along

I think it tracks Ramses including the stops (and there weren't many) and I'm not sure that this part of the course has been changed. Nonetheless, it's all relative and last year no one was ahead of the marker so I would say that they are quicker at this stage of the race.

Saw that, every year I question whether it's a Garmin problem or concentration issue. Let's hope that they realise the problem before they go too far down that road.

Currently 5 riders ahead of the race record after 75km.

Lol I did the same thing with my 800 seems like an inherent problem. I just used a plastic weld stick filed down to suit and sealed off with insulation tape.

They might only be told when they sign in at the next WP and then at the directors discretion they either have to go back to where they left the course and rejoin, or get a time penalty or disqualification. However, if you look at the history of the rider (take Markus Franz for instance) it does not look like he got a huge advantage, but the onus is on the rider to stick to the route.

The drama starts early this year it seems we already have 3 riders off course.

Hang in there.

Not sure if this has been posted but one of my favs.

There are security vehicles in the reserve up to 9 am in the morning on weekends, this is done as a community service by Brinant, CSI and Axxon security so not guaranteed. After 9am it's not advisable to ride and after 8 am on weekdays. I am trying to arrange this on a permanent basis but it needs the involvement of the surrounding estates and it will take some time.

Unfortunately, this is now a regular occurrence at Klapperkop. I had a meeting last Sunday with the three security companies Brinant, CSI and Axxon involved with trying to make the area safer and they have undertaken to comeback to us with a proposal. What is currently happening is that the security guys are present from 7 till around 9 am and the attacks are happening after they leave. I have asked that they give us a schedule so that we can adjust our riding times to this. Please bear in mind that they're currently doing this free of charge as a community service but have no obligation to do this. It might be that we will have to establish a fund to compensate them to make this a commitment, I will let you know.

Struggling to find details do you know who they were?

Security should be there and the guys from CSI Security are there until about 8h00 in the morning, official opening is from 7 to 17h00. I have no reason to say this but I just feel that the safety won't be great until we recreate a "rhythm " in terms of riders and security, so be careful.

My timing for the next pullback is July / August when the poor second quarter results are published. In my opinion that will be the first time the market is going to price in the reality of COVID, at the moment it seems to be driven by hope for a V shaped recovery. In the meantime expect a roller coaster ride.

We're actually seeing a delay of almost 60 days and the excuses are all COVID related. This is going to have serious implications for the economy in our case it's a serious sum of money.

Well done, that's the easy part now don't get too irritated with the FICA nonsense

The local and international markets are almost impossible to fathom right now. I'm sitting on the sidelines with only some shorts on some international markets to trade with and I'm watching the first quarter earnings data with great interest. On one of my portfolios I'm taking the opportunity to re-balance it and lock in some capital gains losses at the same time. Sell low and buy low was not a concept I have thought much about?

You can open an account directly with Vanguard, my trading account is with IG and I use FNB for local and global stocks.

Vanguard they have very low fees but you'll have to pick your own poison https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/list#/etf/asset-class/month-end-returns

Yes you can but I would go on a course first, this is as good as any www.traderscorner.co.za. Beware this is highly technical and very risky. I stopped day trading very quickly because it requires continuous monitoring so I now simply use it to arbitrage my long term investments in times of volatility.

At the start of the year I had some free cash (Euros) that I needed to invest into the market. My foreign investment strategy is relatively simple I look for ETFs that give me a dividend yield of 3% and above. Why ETFs as opposed to ordinary shares? I find that my news feed on companies in the US, Far East and Europe to be either delayed or sometimes very patchy, so it is difficult to monitor these and an ETF gives me an inherent spread in terms of risk. I have been sitting on the cash for somettime now earning no interest but I was waiting for a dip to previous support levels because the market was too rich for my blood and not meeting my hurdle rate of return. So 2 weeks ago I put orders in on three different ETFs at levels that would give me the minimum dividend yield. By Monday last week I was fully invested as the first crash hit us, by Wednesday I was in the money as the market went up again but the volatility was massive so I shorted my shares. I couldn't find a direct short for the specific ETFs so I took shorts on the DOW, the DAX and Shanghai as proxies for my investment spread. As things stand I have an unrealized profit on the shorts but an unrealized loss on my ETFs, on aggregate I am in the black. This shows that the Beta of my ETFs are lower than the markets I have invested in which is another plus. This strategy has worked in this instance and my only decision to make is when to take profit on my short trades. However, my local share portfolio has been reduced to mostly cash as my 10% stop losses kicked in so there's a question about when to reenter the market. Unfortunately my RAs are down roughly 20%. I have been trading on the stock market for over 20 years with well honed strategies that work for me but I am not so sure they're applicable in this market so for what it's worth I would be very cautious about doing anything rash right now. I am sitting on my hands.

Just a note both reserves have been closed on instruction from Provincial government with immediate effect.

Listening to the President's announcement it is clear why this event was cancelled. Remember the quote "in consultation with government" now we know how that went down. Just imagine if it was cancelled after the first stage.

I wonder if social distancing on the ride might not mitigate the risk. No slip streaming and watch that snot rocket.

Thinking about it the Cape Epic is a bit like a landlocked cruise ship with similar shared facilities and possibly worse if you consider shared toilets and showers. Looking at the rate of the virus being spread on a cruise ship added to the fact that a large number of competitors come from Europe which is currently being considered the epicentre of the pandemic, cancelling the event was the only option. That does not make the pain that is being felt by those getting ready to register yesterday any less.