The year wasn't supposed to start like this. One darn thing after another. Not so much crisis stations as having to manage the unexpected, with fallout of course registering in Rand and JSE stock market. The Big Thing, feared for well over a year, didn't turn out to be the Fed. It managed liftoff [...]
For a while it looked as if the Fed was going to be our main 2016 risk (and Zuma our main headache). How quickly things change (and doubtlessly will keep shifting). What will be our main disrupters in 2016? We are now being devoured by devastating drought, Chinese equity and currency market instability are [...]
I don't know about you, but I am getting ready for my next fix. Prof De Kiewiet after decades of much study & contemplation promised us years ago (1946) that SA progresses by way of political disaster and economic windfalls. We have had our fair share of political disasters (serially in recent years), and the [...]
Warren Buffett is known for many sayings, having a worldwide following as the world’s most successful serial investor. One pays attention when Warren says “only when the tide goes out, do you discover who's been swimming naked”. In other words, when times turn poor, and interest rates rise, we can see who in good times [...]
What is top of mind when thinking about Rand prospects, near term and far? It isn't all daily randomness. There is structure, some of it obvious, some of it requiring more digging, giving us a better probability of getting the levels right where the Rand may be residing over time. Even if we cannot pin [...]
So what is the most likely major 2016 bet turning out different? It is probably not the deepening SA drought condition whose full force is yet to show itself. Or the Zuma policy-factor undermining business confidence and laying low SA growth. Or Chinese repositioning, the commodity supercycle bust, or the Saudi, Russian, Iranian & frackers [...]
It was an interesting year. Many also say it was a horrible year, and it certainly was for some, indeed momentous in some respects. But the JSE didn't lose 80% of its value as in 1969, we didn't have massacres like Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, Bisho or Boipatong 1992 or Marikana 2012, we didn't do [...]
There are genuine rewards & recognitions, and then there are hospital passes. What happened to Pravin Gordhan last Sunday was a bit of both when Zuma re-offered him (as a pair of ultimate safe hands capable of damage control) the position of Finance Minister so very recently vacated by his new colleague David van Rooyen, [...]
A rather unexpected course of events late Sunday night (13 December 2015), as Zuma “reconsiders” his decision to fire finance minister Nene, and reappoints Pravin Gordhan (who should never have been replaced last year in the first place with a presumably more pliable Nene) as finance minister. The background to these unprecedented Zuma moves [...]
SA tourism has not had a good decade, marked by global economic crisis & falloff in travel, reinforced by own goals on the visa front. A steadily weaker domestic economy and hash-tag protest marches upsetting potential foreign visitors completes the misery. But could there be a turn for the better in prospects? A surprisingly [...]