The late Cees Bruggemans was a colleague, kind of, in the 1980s when he wrote the incredibly popular Rex Column for the Sunday Times. A brilliant economist, he confided a couple decades later that he was only able to retain his sanity by focusing on a narrow group of data. Such had been the complexity explosion.
I’m not sure whether Stanlib’s Kevin Lings follows the same approach, but from what I’ve seen he certainly does manage to hone in on the most critical stuff. He did so again yesterday when sending out a note on US house prices, now rising at their fastest rate in at least two decades.
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They’re up 20% in the year to end August and have increased by at least 1% per month since July 2020. Lings says this is a consequence of record low interest rates – and worries about the impact this surge will have on inflation. He is by no means alone.
Maybe the Bitcoin punters, many of whom are stocking up on the cyber currency as an inflation hedge, are acting rationally after all.
More for you today (click on linked headline to access) –Â
* Tesla is worth $1 trillion, so why the taxpayer subsidies? The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal applies some rationality to the valuation of Elon Musk’s creation.
* The case against those “bullying” businesses into applying mandatory vaccines. NEASA’s chief executive Gerhard Papenfus’s potent five minute video to business owners (and managers).
* AngloGold strikes back to defend Maria Ramos. The miner backs her against predecessor chair Sipho Pityana who has gone to court over claims Ramos intervened to block his appointment as to lead Absa’s board.
* If you missed yesterday’s BizNews share portfolio update, here’s the link to the video recording of the full webinar:Â https://youtu.be/r95R6El3BVUÂ
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