The Editor's Desk — Budget lock-up beckons: SA’s bloated state, Trump’s Iran corner, and HRV

In today’s BizNews Premium Editor’s Desk, Alec Hogg looks behind the curtain ahead of Budget lock-up — why South Africa’s state has become too big, what a shrinking GDP-per-capita scoreboard signals, and what to watch for in the Minister’s numbers. He also flags a sobering Financial Times read on Donald Trump’s Iran dilemma and the rising risk of conflict, and ends with a practical Economist explainer on HRV — the wearable metric that may be the best indicator of overall health..Don't miss out on future episodes of The Editor's Desk. Subscribe to BizNews Premium and get the podcast delivered to your inbox daily..Listen here.Edited transcript of today's Editor's Desk episode.Hello and welcome. I'm Alec Hogg. By now, you've likely scanned the headlines on BizNews.com or caught the interviews on the channel. But the real story often lives in the margins—the context that doesn't make the press release and the whispers we pick up after the record button stops. Whether it's the shifting sands of geopolitics or the political currents shaping our economy, that is what we do here. We strip away the polish to tell you the backstory and why it actually matters. This is the Editor’s Desk: exclusive analysis for our premium members. It’s Monday, the 23rd of February, 2026. Let's have a look behind the curtain. Well, are we gearing up for tomorrow? Once a month, I get together with the premium members and share the latest update on the business portfolios. We've got two of them—well, three, I suppose. Strictly speaking, the Ricardo portfolios, which were recently launched, are monthly investments. Every month we recommend that you put a certain amount aside, whether it's 50 rand, 1,000 rand, or 100,000 rand. You put in a set amount that you can afford as part of your savings plan. By doing this, you don't have to worry about short-term changes in share prices. You are in a long-term investment programme and you are taking advantage of rand cost averaging. We have the Ricardo portfolio based in South Africa—the ZAR Ricardo portfolio—and the Ricardo portfolio based on US stocks. Recently, the US portfolio has come under a little bit of pressure. The South African portfolio has done pretty well, but we'll be talking about both of those in the webinar tomorrow. If you're a premium member, just pick up the link from the premium newsletter. If all else fails, send an email to support@biznews.com and the team will make sure you have the link to register so you can join me tomorrow at noon. It’s going to be an interesting webinar. Amongst the stocks we have been talking about is Sasol, because Sasol is in the Shyft portfolio. The Shyft portfolio is four years old; Sasol has been in there and has done very well. In fact, it is now back to an 18-month high. Results were out today for the six months to the end of December, and they made very difficult reading. I wrote a piece for BizNews on it with more detail, but essentially you have to understand Sasol is a company dependent mostly on what happens to the oil price in rand terms. When the oil price is steady in dollars but the rand is strong, Sasol's revenues fall. If the oil price in dollars is steady and the rand is weak, Sasol's revenue goes up because its major income stream is priced in rands. Recently, the oil price was weak until very lately—it didn’t improve soon enough to impact these financial results. We’ve seen some real bumps in the oil price, largely due to tensions involving Iran and the American fleet. It is the biggest buildup of military hardware in the Middle East since the Iraq War. Traders say the oil price, now over $70 a barrel, includes a $10 premium due to the uncertainty of a potential conflict with Iran. For Sasol, the "big ticket" story is that their debt must fall below $3 billion before they start paying dividends again. In the interim results, debt was at $3.8 billion, so there is still $800 million to be sorted out. Another big story today comes from our partners at the Financial Times, written by Ruchir Sharma, the chairman of Rockefeller International. He has written a beautiful piece with great relevance for South Africans because the gold price is currently determining the rand. It sounds crazy, but when the gold price rises, the rand strengthens. Sharma explains that gold is reacting completely differently than it has in the past, breaking all the old rules and models. Interestingly, investment demand for gold has doubled in the last year, driven significantly by retail buyers in China. We also have a piece by Justice Malala, who now writes primarily for Bloomberg. He has written a really good piece about Helen Zille and Patrice Motsepe. Zille is focusing her attention on Johannesburg. She has a reputation as the "Iron Lady" and a track record of being the "best mayor in the world" in Cape Town. It will be interesting to see how she engages with Herman Mashaba, as both are candidates for Johannesburg—once the richest city in Africa. Justice also refers to the idea of Patrice Motsepe entering the race for the presidency of the ANC next year, potentially standing as a presidential candidate in 2029. While Motsepe has had huge success in football with Mamelodi Sundowns and as president of African football, Justice suggests that him moving into national politics wouldn't be a bad thing for the country. Finally, we have a fabulous piece from The Economist regarding what international investors are calling the "software apocalypse." It discusses how tools from companies like Anthropic, leveraging artificial intelligence, are creating scares for traditional software companies. Coding that was once the preserve of specialized companies can now be done almost as easily by someone with AI experience. I’ll leave it there for today. Don’t forget to join me for Daybreak, my new morning business show, by 6:30 AM. Keep your eye on the premium newsletter for links to our freshest content and tomorrow's webinar. Thank you for trusting us with your time.I'm Alec Hogg, until tomorrow. Cheerio.

The Editor's Desk — Budget lock-up beckons: SA’s bloated state, Trump’s Iran corner, and HRV

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