The BizNews Premium Podcast
My last roadshow with our long-time partner Standard Bank Online Share Trading was in early March 2020. Listening to the recording of that event illustrated the unpredictability of our world. There was not even a mention during question time about COVID – yet three weeks later SA had a Lockdown which turned the economy in its head.
This week, I’ll be back in auditoriums sharing ideas with investors in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. My presentation focuses on 2024’s watershed National Election which will usher in coalition politics. I’ll share various scenarios and how they may impact the JSE. Remembering even the best plans can be tripped by “unknown unknowns.”
Having learnt from COVID, I’ll remind the audiences we can only work with the information that’s available to us right now. And point to three “known unknowns” – ANC Elective Conference; possible Greylisting; Inflation and the impact on interest rates – that must take into consideration before investors decide to allocate hard-earned savings.
By historical measures, a clutch of JSE-listed stocks are priced for the worst possible outcomes on those three variables. As COVID taught us, though, we have no idea what else may be around the corner – good or bad.
More for you to read today:
- Jittery stock traders eye four days that will sow market’s fate. In the span of just seven trading sessions, there will be four major events that could shape the market’s outlook for the rest of the year.
- UK starts to feel the pinch from biggest rate rises in 33 years. Economists and investors expect the UK central bank to raise its benchmark lending rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3% on Nov. 3.
- Putin stirs European worry on home appliance imports stripped for arms. European officials familiar with the figures say they worry at least some of the goods and their components may be finding their way into military use.
- Fed and BOE prepare 75 basis-point salvos on inflation. The transatlantic double act illustrates the trade-off confronting central banks as evidence of an impending global economic contraction becomes harder to ignore, even as inflation lingers.
- Bad S&P 500 earnings are playing right into the Fed’s hands. As recently as May, third-quarter earnings for companies in the S&P 500 were forecast to rise by 9.7%. The expected gain was 2.5% last week.
- Hellscape or not, Twitter will be something different under Musk. Twitter has spent the last few years focused on reducing bullying and abuse on its network; Musk says he wants to loosen content restrictions and reverse account bans.
Cabinet has officially “ditched” cadre deployment in favour of merit-based appointments throughout the public service. Officially the policy is called the National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector and was – quite silently, one might add – adopted by cabinet on 19 October. The DA’s shadow minister for public service and administration Dr Leon Schreiber, believes quite emphatically, that this is the most significant policy shift in this country’s democratic history. It’s a battle he and his party have been fighting for years. Adoption of a policy versus implementation remains a sticking point. For this reason, Schreiber tells BizNews correspondent Michael Appel, the court battle to abolish cadre deployment must continue because the ANC cannot defend such a policy when cabinet has already rejected it. The two are mutually exclusive.
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