Mr Price is raising capital through an age old method. Are we going to see a scramble to capture Edgars' market share if they don't survive after lockdown? Investec are navigating murky waters after Brexit and Covid-19 have restrained business activity. Are food retailers Covid-proof? Chinese stocks are feeling the pinch of China's security measures. And American unemployment claims have hit historical figures.

Though JSE share value is down, this is no time to panic, Exchanges recover from crashes rather quickly. With the UK's GDP contracting 2% in the first quarter and 33 million jobs lost in America, how will this affect consumer spending as lockdown eases? Group Five will be delisting after nearly five decades on the JSE.

The economic reality on the street vs the markets is worlds apart. Is it good when the yield is up? What exactly are foreign reserves? Is Covid-19 enforced redundancy just an excuse for businesses who were on the brink anyway? And the US job loss numbers have gone beyond the number of people who are employed in South Africa.

Another positive week for the JSE, as investors turn positive on the news that quite a few countries are lifting lockdown restrictions. S&P ratings agency downgraded SA further into junk status, but the Rand is still holding below 19/US$. Edcon has filed for voluntary business rescue, as Comair find themselves in a “very difficult“ financial situation. The US Fed kept rates on hold, while another 3.8m Americans registered for unemployment. And Spotify claims that podcast listening has increased, as every day for users now looks like the weekend.

Why doesn't the Stock Market close when all other businesses have to? Who legislates the JSE? Are traders adjusting to volatility as the new norm on the market? While the Rand hit an all-time low, Anthea details what micro and macro factors could lead to inflation if we are not careful.

How is it possible that trading volumes are up January to March 2020? Are the IMF being a little dramatic with their predictions on the economic global outlook post Covid-19? JP Morgan's losses are astronomical in the latest reporting. Gold is now a bar, yes it's that kind of bar but also, it now costs one bar for a bar. The IEA predicts a sharp drop in barrel per day production in the oil sector - how does this affect the markets and oil prices? Reports claim South Africa might hit an undesirable world first when it comes to the employment sector.

Banks are expecting a $5 trillion loss from all the coronavirus related economic inactivity. The All Share Index is up 4%, which is a disconnect from the real world economy. Sasol's share price is up 73%... what is going on there? Volatility is at an all time high on the markets, even beyond 2008 numbers. Is lockdown a good time to be online trading? Crowd1 - be careful, do research before signing up. China reopening its economy has been interesting. And the World Bank has some scary predictions for Sub-Saharan economies.

South African Bonds are still in high demand, which is good news in what has been a tough economic month for the country. Banks have taken a 40% knock and projections are not much better, as the ripple effect of Covid-19 is now truly starting to shake all sectors of the economy to its core. Gold and tech companies seem to have shown a bullish nature, even in these challenging times. Could this be the time to renegotiate your lease with your landlord if you are a retailer occupying space in malls? The inevitable cash crunch - which was expected - is now starting to rear its ugly head. Russia and Saudi Arabia continue their stand-off over oil... not even a pandemic has brought a moratorium between these juggernaughts who are both rich in ‘black gold’.

Edcon has been teetering for a while, but the Covid-19 lockdown may very well be the coup de grace which deems the company defunct. Mr Price has delayed the release of its reports during the lockdown, and there are murmurs that bonuses and raises for their executive staff may be frozen until further notice. Moody's has finally dropped the hammer and South Africa is now officially at junk status. How will this affect South Africa, from the Reserve Bank to the citizen who is paying a bond and school fees? Will Covid-19 be harder to recover from than the market crash of 2008?

The credo of those who trade on stock markets right now is “sell, sell, sell!” The trend as we stand is to move from equity to cash. The All-Share index is 9% down this week. South Africa - of all the emerging markets on planet Earth - is doing well, let’s see if that holds. Banks are trading at 2008 levels, yikes! Capitec came out with a strong message for shareholders. On the surface, some property shares are showing a 40% yield, but the fine print needs a sharp eye. There’s a difference between panic and capitulating - Anthea explains. Big up to the blue bank of South Africa... students and SMEs will be grateful for the next 90 days.

We’re in a bear market now, that’s not great news. In the USA, central banks will cut interest rates and pump “easy money” into the system. We saw quantitative easing in 2008, and what did the banks do then? Sasol are struggling, but do we just need to calm down? As an investor, when is the best time to buy/sell shares? Anthea gives her post Covid-19 hopes for South African consumers.

Seleho is quite clear about where you shouldn’t put your money as corona fear spreads throughout the market. Has South Africa stayed with the markets of the world in terms of growth? The blue and green banks of South Africa have posted contrasting results... it’s amazing to see the polarity. Ye old faithful Bidvest continues to offer value in a shrinking economy, how are they so robust? OPEC is at loggerheads internally, and Anglo American declares a force majeure.

This week we saw the biggest decline on the markets since the global financial crisis of 2008. If you are a long term investor, don’t panic. Tito’s speech contained no tax increase... what a miracle. Can he cut the public sector wage bill though? How much more debt can South Africa take on before the Rand blows out? Sasol have had another shocker. BHP Billiton have had impressive reports and are just ticking along nicely. But Shoprite results are not as good as the books might suggest.

Coal consumption has been reduced by 50% in China, the coronavirus has almost halted the Chinese economy. Economists are downgrading economic growth worldwide because China’s activity affects the world at large. It’s Budget Speech week and Anthea has a less than positive take on the prospects beyond Tito’s address. How will Moody’s deal with South Africa after they hear the budget speech? Discovery Group have had a mixed year of activity and Vitality Life numbers are no good. Truworths have been bullish in a tough economy. And Woolworths… oh dear, the less said the better.

The coronavirus is still having a tremendous effect on world markets. Hong Kong’s landlords have cut prices by up to 50% in an effort to keep tenants occupying their properties. Moody’s has taken a surprisingly positive stance after Cyril’s SONA. However the Budget Speech will determine whether South Africa will be downgraded or not. AngloGold’s fire sale, is it something to worry about or just a strategic global move? Eskom are retrenching non-core management with a budget of R400m being allocated to these layoffs. Tongaat Hulett are not looking so sweet at the moment, debts of R8 billion suggest things are not ideal. And Anthea tells us if she thinks Cell C will survive.

As the Chinese workforce gets back to work, it’s revealed that oil demand is down 20%, the coronavirus’ effect is everywhere. The People’s Bank of China has pumped 1.7 trillion Yuan into the economy. The Mining Indaba was not the extravaganza of years gone by. The purchasing managers’ index is at 45.2% - what does this mean for the economy? The US has added 200,000 jobs according to the latest reports. US and European economies are booming! Amazon hits the trillion dollar market cap... welcome to the club Jeff.

Coronavirus has affected the Asian market - Asian shares are down 7%. Two thirds of Chinese businesses are closed for the week. The winners from coronavirus are the biotech companies. Anthea says when the Rand is weak, invest off peak. Elon Musk is on his way to a possible $50 billion bonus. Toyota are investing R4.2 billion in South Africa, good news. And Jeff Bezos added $7.9 billion to his personal wealth this week.

The Corona virus is affecting the markets. Even after a bullish 5 months, the markets are so fragile. In these uncertain times, where should we be investing our money? How do we find high return businesses? Tesla is now worth twice as much as Ferrari, how is that possible? Naspers is making "10 Cent" moves. Get your hands on platinum and Clicks shares, they’re a sure thing. And load shedding cost Anglo Platinum an estimated $700m over the last year.

The Reserve Bank has lowered the interest rate. China and America have finally sealed what looks like a massive trade deal between the two countries. Peter Moyo’s departure has seen the Old Mutual stock rise by 6%. Brick and mortar is losing to e-commerce. Naspers CEO Bob van Dyk has just monetised R1 billion worth of shares. Anthea suggests that you keep your Naspers shares. And Tito on Twitter is a travesty.

WW3 is already over before it started and the markets have reacted. Anthea tells us about the effects of load shedding on the outlook of business in South Africa. Edcon has shut down its Edgars store in Rosebank, not a great sign. Is retail dead? Absa has announced their brand new CEO... Anthea has some very strong feelings on the matter. And the Dow Jones hit the 29,000 level - good signs.

Anthea is back for 2020 to work hard for her money. MTN pays the price for terrorism. WW3, how did the markets respond? Anthea breaks down the top 10 performing stocks of 2019. Don't aim for the Gold Standard... Platinum is where it's at!

Anthea responds to an email from a listener who wants to find out if there’s a posibility of an IMF bailout for us. In other news, she recently attended a big bank’s investment conference and she shares more about the insights gained from the conference. We also get her to weigh in on the recent big news of SAA going into business rescue.

Henry is standing in for Anthea and he’s giving advice on how to invest your money. Do you see your money and investments in Rands? Well maybe it’s time you started measuring yourself and wealth in Dollars. Find out why.

It’s been a busy week on the JSE with a lot of companies making announcements. Mr Price shared their first half results and it isn’t looking too good. Investec also reported their H1 results and their share has taken a slight tumble since September. Anthea also shares the results of Tsogo Sun, as well as Life Healthcare.

Seleho Tsatsi is in for Anthea today, and he anticipates that like-for-like net rental income for 2019 will be down by around 9%. He gives an update on Dis-Chem and how things are looking for them. Could they be the next Clicks? Uber on the other hand has their results out too, and it seems they’ve been bleeding money - $2.5 billion to be precise.

Oil imports decreased during the month of September, causing trade surplus to widen. With the budget behind us, this past Friday Moody’s changed our outlook from Stable to Negative. On a brighter note, the US Dept of Labour said that they had added 128k jobs.

This week crude oil dropped below $61/bbl... we find out why with Anthea. Pick n Pay on the other hand reported a very impressive set of results, with an increase in turnover. Twitter reported a Q3 net income of $37-million, or 5 US cents per share.

Henry Biddlecombe joins us in place of Anthea this week, and he chats about streaming wars - with Disney and Amazon coming up as strong contenders against the likes of Netflix. He also touches on Brexit, and what it actually means for investors.

EM currency traders reacted nervously to Trump’s tweet, and Anthea explains why currencies are sensitive to seemingly insignificant things such as a tweet or someone's opinion. Trade negotiations remained in the spotlight as the Chinese delegation headed to Washington. Meanwhile back home, President Ramaphosa - in his recently launched Monday newsletters to the nation - said he is hopeful an agreement (AfCFTA – African Continental Free Trade Agreement) that could see the continent become the world’s largest free-trade zone, will boost the country’s sluggish economy.

Markets were plagued by risk off sentiment last week as traders and investors worried about trade wars. Meanwhile, it looks like we’ll have a new listing on the JSE next year with Engen raising money to upgrade its Durban facilities. Then, FSCA imposed a record R100m fine on MetCI last week, four years after Third Circle lost two thirds of its value in just two days of trading in December 2015.

Pick n Pay makes a startling announcement around being billions in debt. Capitec on the other hand seems to be bucking the banking trend and growing ever stronger, where other banks are seeing a decline. Then, Niche financial services group Ecsponent announces that they are expecting HEPS to fall by at least 195%.

Anthea is back and gives us a full update on everything in the world of finance and banking. The CPI inflation has come out at 4.4%, while the EOH is expecting an EPS loss, and Sasol is planning on selling its South African coal mining business.

Facebook: the 'not so sexy' tech stock these days. Henry Biddlecombe chats to us about social media platforms and what strategies they are putting in place to bring in more revenue. Do you know what influences your spending habits? Well big organisations do, and it might be useful to know how they capitalise on this with this week’s Money Shot.

Sasol delays the release of its FY19 restuls and Seleho Tsatsi is in to tell us more. A new Apple phone has been unveiled and we get into the financials of this mobile giant, as well as whether it's actually worth the upgrade. On the other end of the spectrum, Facebook has launched a dating site in the US - but will they monetise this too, as we've seen with the likes of Tinder?

There’s lots of company results from this past week. Stadio reported a 46% in HEPS for the first half of their financial year. Logistics business Imperial reported a 7% decline in full year earnings, blaming the economy for the poor performance. And finally, DRD Gold increased revenue by 11% and operating profit by 9%.

Global markets adopted a 'wait and see' approach this week, in anticipation of what the US Fed would say at the Jackson Hole meeting, after the Yield curve inverted last week; volumes were just pathetic. Investors are getting whiplash as Trump spent the week flip flopping. Back home, Moody’s issued a statement stating that they believe that the South Africa’s government will try to absorb the additional support for Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. with new revenue or expenditure measures in the mid-term budget.

The US yield curve inverted (although briefly), meaning that the yield on the 10 year government bond was lower than the yield on the 2 year bond. Find out why this is important in this week's episode of the Money Shot. And, Argentinian populist candidate Alberto Fernandez won the primary election and the market reacted very badly.

China fired a warning shot as it weakened its currency against the US Dollar. The Yuan fell by 6% on Monday, not enough to make up for the Trade Tariffs that were imposed the week before, but certainly a warning. Trump reacted badly, asking the Fed to review currency manipulation. SASBO, the SA banking union, is threatening to strike over job losses on the sector. They have 73k employees registered with the union, threatening to bring SA banking system to a halt.

It's a busy week as the US Fed cuts interest rates. Trump imposes an additional 10% trade tariff on $300bn worth of Chinese goods. Meanwhile back at home, the boardroom brawl continues between Old Mutual and Peter Moyo, Eskom reports a R20.7bn loss for the financial year, and the Rand plummets to close Friday at R14.76 against the US Dollar - after trading with a 13 handle just a week ago. And Woolworths reports rather disappointing results.

CPI inflation came in again slap bang in the middle of the SARB’s target range. Eskom gets an additional bailout of R59bn, and the chickens are already coming home to roost as Fitch kept our credit rating stable, but downgrades the outlook from stable to negative... and Moody’s warns that government debt is now at dangerous levels.

It seems like the markets are not loving the renewed talks of China/US trade wars and the seizing of the British “fuel smuggling” tanker by Iran in the Strait of Homuz. Anthea explains that, as well as sharing the good news of the SA Reserve Bank cutting interest rates and Ford committing to creating 1,200 new jobs as they ramp up their new plant here in SA. She also reports on EOH, Pioneer Foods and PepsiCo. To wrap things up, she discusses how Netflix has fallen 12% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after indicating that it had lost subscribers in the US for the first time since 2008.

The market is swinging in all directions while the Rand is constantly flirting with the 13 handle to the USD, but can’t seem to settle on this figure. Woolworths releases a trading update which is in line with what was expected. Health is important and FNB’s banking app now rewards good well-being. The CEO of the Stringfellow Group hands himself over to the police in Honeydew, following allegations that he may have misappropriated hundreds of millions in client funds. Plus, more on Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, Virgin Galactic.

With Gareth away, the rest of the team take up this week's finance conversations with Anthea, starting with a look at trading volumes and US non-farm payrolls. Congratulations go out to Christine Lagarde and Phuti Mahanyele-Debengwa on their new positions. Anthea then unpacks Eskom’s debt for government bonds or ring-fencing it in a special account, before giving details of escalating battle between Peter Moyo and Trevor Manuel. She wraps things up by helping a listener find out more about Karatbars.

With the beginning of July signalling the mid-point of the year, Anthea reports on the JSE closing the first half of 2019 in positive territory, despite a weak economy - an economy that remains stuck in its longest downward cycle since 1945. She also looks at the formal sector adding 22 000 new jobs in the first quarter of 2019, Daniel Mminele’s resignation, the petrol price, and Steinhoff looking to recover R870m from Jooste. The new #PayBackTheMoney - Discovery Bank - gets discussed, too.

The US Fed has left rates unchanged, but signalled that they are prepared to cut rates. On Wednesday the European Central Bank (ECB) surprised the market by signalling an increased likelihood of rate cuts (although rates are already at record lows) and stimulus measure. South Africa’s May 2019 CPI inflation rate came out at 4.5% y/y (April 4.4% y/y). Multichoice reported core HEPS up 10% to 410cps, which was roughly the mid-point of the range given in the recent trading update. Naspers has released its results for the year to end March. KAP reported a core HEPS decline of 8% for FY19, which is an unexpected disappointment, especially in light of the 6% growth achieved in H1. And Facebook announced the launch of its cryptocurrency, Libra.

How has the bombing of the two Japanese oil tankers in the strait of Hormuz by the Iranians impacted the economy? Anthea explains it to the team, before looking at emerging markets, mining production and Business Confidence. She also touches on Naspers rising, even though Tencent fell in Hong Kong. She concludes with an analysis of Beyond Meat, a Los Angeles based producer of plant-based meat substitutes.

In this special edition of The Money Shot, the team turn the tables on Anthea as they pick her brain about her new book, 'How To Make Your Money Work For You'. Find out how her book advises you to ‘sweat your assets’ by making your hard-earned cash work for you – and it won’t even require a degree in accounting.

Markets ended the week in the black, but it was mostly about the macro-economics last week - get insight about this straight from Anthea here. SAA's CEO, on top of all other CEOs recently, has stepped down. She also looks at company news before giving her take on US non-farm payrolls.

While Anthea is away, Henry Biddlecombe takes her seat to give an update on finance and the markets. He breaks down what operating leverage - this incredibly boring-sounding accounting term - has to do with your portfolio. Then, he also weighs out whether the Beyond Meat IPO is something to get excited about. Lastly, he gives his take on the tech you can invest in without burning your fingers.

CPI Inflation (4.4%) was below mid-point of the SARB’s target range, and yet they still left rates unchanged! Want to find out what that is all about? Anthea discusses it, along with giving her take on companies reporting and massive corporate CEO shake ups. There've been big movers and other noteworthy results. To wrap things up, she discusses the resignation of UK Prime Minister Theresa May.

The SA unemployment rate came out last week and had market commentators up in arms – not great, but what did we expect? Anthea examines these numbers, as well as discussing China retaliating after President Trump raised import tariffs, by raising imports on some American goods. She also talks about Netcare, Vodacom, Dis-chem, Transaction Capital and Spar... since reporting season has started again in SA. She wraps up with news of two new listings of interest: MTN Nigeria and Uber.

After a rather disappointing election week, the stock market came under huge pressure. Anthea gives her take on that, as well as President Trump raising tariffs. She also touches on mining and manufacturing data, MTN's quarterly update and both Mondi and Sappi reports. And lastly, … drum roll please… the Uber IPO. Poor Travis Kalanick wasn’t even invited to ring the bell (as is tradition for founders and CEOs of newly listed companies to do) – couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!

Last week, Shoprite Holdings announced that CEO Pieter Engelbrecht had taken a leveraged bet on the company’s share price - Anthea explains to the team exactly what that means for Pick n Pay consumer spending and retail sales. We also discuss America’s GDP figures and the what the addition of 263,000 jobs means for the U.S . Anthea concludes with Facebook earnings, Microsoft quarterly results and the consistent Amazon story.

Joining via Skype from Cape Town, Anthea gives a breakdown of some of the people who have been in the financial news recently. First up, she discusses Maria Ramos heading up the Eskom unbundling project, then how Elon Musk is at it again causing trouble on his phone. She ends off with her take on Jack Ma's views for people to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week (the 996 schedule).

IMF has downgraded global growth, while South African business confidence slumped to the lowest level in seven months in March, but the stock market pushed higher. Anthea touches on this, as well as an update on Naspers. In company news, she discusses Pick n Pay, Sibanye Stillwater, MultiChoice, EOH and Uber. On the subject of IPOs, she looks at Levi Strauss, which completed an initial public offering last month, and rose 7% after its first quarterly report as a public company impressed investors.

Anthea reflects on a conference call she had with Moody’s, and shares insight into why they left SA’s credit rating unchanged. She also talks about new Vehicle Sales, the firming of the Rand and Aspen jumping for two consecutive days. She concludes with her take on Nampak being higher after news of selling it’s cardboard business and US non-farm payrolls coming in at 196,000 (16k more than expected).

It seems like the chaos around Brexit is neverending... to try to make sense of it all, Anthea gives her take on the latest news surrounding it. She also updates the team on the Monetary Policy Committee unanimously deciding to leave rates unchanged after Producer Price Inflation showed a modest 4.7% rise for the month of February. Hear about Moody’s not giving SA a credit rating and why Turkey’s borrowing rate blew out to 1000%. In company news, she touches on Capitec Bank taking a hit of at least $25 million from cutting transaction fees in 2019, Steinhoff beginning to sell off assets and lastly, Naspers announcing it's preparing for a listing in Amsterdam.

Henry Biddlecombe stands in for Anthea while she is away this week. He kicks things off by discussing Tencent results and moves to examining how the banking industry in South Africa will potentially be disrupted by digital players, and how to invest in this theme. And as the nation continues to battle with load-shedding, how is the current power situation impacting our investment views?

Another day, another Brexit headline! It seems like that's the case as Anthea leads a conversation around breaking down the current situation in the UK. She also touches on mining and manufacturing data that's just been released, construction company, Group Five, filing for bankruptcy and Exxaro Resource reporting outstanding results. Patrice Motsepe is on the up and up with the African Rainbow Capital Investments results, and Tyme now adding 3,500 clients a day. She also comments on Rand Merchant Holdings saying releasing their normalised earnings in the six months ended December 2018 growing 7% to R4.4bn - despite “significant turbulence” in the macroeconomic environment. She concludes with PWC’s report on Steinhoff that was revealed this week.

SA GDP growth came in at 1.4% for the 4th quarter of 2018. What does Anthea think about this? Listen in this week as she doesn't mince her words, and gives her take on the whispers that South African Reserve Bank deputy governor Daniel Mminele is being eyed as a potential replacement for departing Absa CEO Maria Ramos. She also discusses some of the latest company results, from interesting intel on MTN's plans, to a rather disastrous Aspen and Nedbank - which isn't great, but considering the economic environment neither was it horrendous!

It was an eventful week but fear not as Anthea's got the financial news covered. She reports on the SA Trade Balance and Budget Balances swinging into deficit, the Producer Price inflation number at 4.1% and how Elon Musk is upsetting the US Financial Markets regulatory board (yet again). She breaks down how the uncertainty around Brexit has made markets nervous and gives an update on the SA All Share index. In conclusion, she touches on the Sasol, Shoprite, JSE and Multichoice company reports.

How will the budget and downgrade affect our investment portfolios and what people should be looking to do, following the Budget Speech? Anthea answers this as she also advises to take advantage of the Tax-Free Savings Accounts. She also explains how the launch of the Discovery bank is impacting profits, FirstRand's trading statement and Truworth's jump in results. She concludes with Anglo American continuing to deleverage its balance sheet with net debt to EBIDTA only 0.3x.

A big financial week lies ahead for South Africa as the nation braces itself for the Budget Speech. Comair has entered into a full and final settlement agreement with SAA over an anti-competition case. What does this mean? Anthea breaks it down, as well as touching on EOH falling a further 25% early in the week and Curro releasing a great set of results. She also looks at Dis-Chem and DSY's trading update.

The drought is over and long forgotten, but after the Agri Business reports recently it looks like we’re not quite out of the woods. Anthea brings the latest on that, as well as discussing Absa CEO Maria Ramos's resignation. She also breaks down SHP's trading statement, LVMH's report and Eskom releasing a SENS listing by name of the people and companies they believe contributed to the irregular expenditure hole in their income statement for the half-year period ending 09/2018. She also touches on the effects of the horrendous Vale mudslide and the Apple shares trading 5% higher in post market trade after reporting on Tuesday evening. And finally, after an exciting competition, Waylon Smit from EasyEquities announces the #Invest-Star winner!

CPI Inflation came in at the middle of the SARB target, 4.5%, this is not a bad week on the JSE - considering more retailers put out terrible trading updates, and even the Rand strengthened a bit. Anthea highlights Massmart's trading update, Shoprite's numbers, and the Vodacom report which has raised eyebrows. There's lots going on in Naspers as it gets approval to separately list its pay TV business (Multichoice), and Tencent gets China Govt approval for more games. Lastly, she shares her thoughts on the general feeling on the global economy out of Davos.

How does the build-up to elections reflect on the market? Anthea kicks off this week's update with a breakdown of that before tackling all of the discussions happening around the South African Reserve Bank. The other issue that raised its ugly head at the ANC conference was President Ramaphosa saying that the challenges at Eskom were being handled?! And more importantly, the question of Prescribed Assets. Find out more about that here, as well as getting a look at big company news. How is it possible that May’s government survived a No Confidence vote?! Anthea concludes by commenting on that.

We had a decent week, Rand and JSE stronger as US/Sino relations settle; and the focus was predominantly on Theresa May, who managed to survive a vote of no confidence. Who would have thought Eskom was in the home loan business… but it was revealed last week that they are planning to sell the debt book to Patrice Motsepe’s ARI (African Rainbow Investments). Anthea discusses the SA CPI inflation rising to 5.2%, and retail sales rising 2.2% (not including Black Friday) and concludes with individual company news: Tencent’s Music Entertainment group, FirstRand and Alexander Forbes.

Anthea called it on Naspers last week - the share closed 4.5% higher on Monday. In fact, the overall market was 2% higher because of the President Trump – President Xi Jingping agreement. However, it all turned pear-shaped when Trump started tweeting again on Tuesday. Then it really turned bad when Canada arrested the CFO, and daughter of the founder, of Huawei – US/Sino trade tensions have escalated again. Hear all about that, the US yield curve which has inverted, what SA's third quarter GDP has showed us, marking the Steinhoff-versary and Group Five falling as much as 40% in one day, after news of a Ghanaian power plant woes, here. Plus some more tips for our #INVEST Easy Equities competition.

The Business Confidence Index came in at the lowest level since the 2nd Quarter of 2017 when Zuma fired Gordhan and we were downgraded to junk status. Consumer confidence was no better. Anthea discusses this, as well as gives a look at company results, a petrol price update and lastly the announcement of an exciting new #INVEST Easy Equities competition.

Henry Biddlecombe stands in for Anthea Gardner this morning as he takes a look at US Earnings season review for Q318, questions why the market is not responding well to what seems to be very positive earnings growth, as well as explaining what peak earnings are all about. Henry wraps up with the interesting results of Amazon, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

The SA Reserve Bank surprised us by raising interest rates by 0.25%, the first hike since early 2016 - bringing the repo rate to 6.75% and the prime lending rate to 10.25%. SARB argued that it was a risk mitigation strategy, clearly trying to avoid stagflation (which is high inflation, low economic growth and high unemployment), and is difficult to manage. The Rand strengthened dramatically from 13.95 against the USD to 13.73, MPC growth predictions for the year was lowered to 0.6% (prev 0.7%) and kept the same for 2019: 1.9% and 2020: 2%. Anthea threatened to put Gareth’s name forward to SARB as they are looking for another external MPC member.

Anthea kicks off this week's business and financial segment of The Money Shot by responding to a listener's email. Not a great start to the week on company news, Vodacom (-8%), BTI (-11%), Rebosis (-21%) and Tsogo Sun (-3%). On the bright side, Discovery Bank launches, while Tencent reports results, and some good news on Torre.

According to Anthea, it really wasn't a bad week on the JSE as the week started with trying to recover some of October’s losses. She updates on the Rand trading with a mind of its own, SAA being the talk of the markets as they hint at selling shares in the business and MTN looking set to settle with the Nigerian Central Bank. Discovery raised R1.85bn overnight by issuing 11.4mn new shares @ R162/sh - Anthea also comments on this, as well as all that's happening in the banking sector as Tyme launched last week and Standard Bank plans a secondary listing. She concludes with a retail sector update: Foschini and Richemont releasing results and Alibaba having their 10th Singles Day yesterday, netting $10bn in the first hour of trading.

The month of October brought about the most volatile market we've seen in a while, and down the most since 2009. On company news, Famous Brands and Raubex reported interim results, Impala Platinum released a solid quarterly production report with MTN releasing their solid update. I&J and Karan beef have been implicated in collusion, while Sanlam released plans of their new BEE deal. SA unemployment was up again last quarter to 27.5%, but on a positive note, a 30c decrease in petrol price this month is something to look forward to.

The JSE share price is down by 2.5%. In company news, Clicks has released an interesting set of results, a nice comparison with last week's Dis-chem results. Richemont announces a deal with Alibaba, while Verimark announces plans to delist. Stadio is set to acquire another higher education institution. Allied Electronics and Tesla released results, so it would seem that Musk isn't doing too badly.

The JSE was down for a fourth consecutive week but does this present a buying opportunity for us? Anthea looks at that, along with the main focus of this week: The medium-term budget speech. In executive moves Anthea looks at Stuart Bird's resignation from Mr Price, Kevin Hedderwick joining Kauai, Famous Brands' 6-month trading statement, Brait's announcement, Dis-chem and Consolidated Motor Holdings' results and Mediclinic's trading update. She concludes with news from across the pond as Netflix reports.

Anthea Gardner returns from Half Ironman to tackle the burning issues in the business and finance world. Our 5th finance minister in 3 years, the Rand has been volatile but strengthened as Moody's did not downgrade us. Trump criticises the US FED. Naspers' shares take a pounding and Sanlam has finally been approved to buy Moroccan Saham.

Brent crude oil price hit a 4-year high since 2014 at $86/bbl and has stayed near those heights at $85/bbl. Seleho Tsatsi discusses with the team exactly what this means for both consumers and investors. More around the Pioneer Food Group trading statement, EOH results, plus Tesla and Elon Musk.

The markets had a mid-week bounce after the US said it was ready to restart trade talks. What type of effect does this have? Anthea chats about those ripple effects, and the likes of the Government Employees Pension Fund looking to increase its allocation to offshore investments, and Impala Platinum reporting a R10.8bn loss for the full year. And in one of the biggest finance stories this past week, Apple released their new iPhone XS, and the dual sim card is playing straight into the hands of Rain, which was the focus of African Rainbow Investment results presentation.

To kick the week off, Anthea takes a look at SA Macro updates from the country going into technical recession to the government subsidising the petrol price for September, raising it by only 5c a litre instead of the expected 25-30c. In companies reporting, she touches on Supergroup, Discovery, MMI, FirstRand and Capitec. And in global news, find out how US non-farm payrolls came out better than expected, Amazon becoming the second US listed company to reach a 13 digit valuation of $1trn and how Elon Musk smoking weed impacted his business. In closing, Anthea brings up Jack Ma's retirement and the plans he has in place for that.

This week Seleho Tsatsi from Anchor Capital stands in for Anthea as he kicks things off with a wrap of August's biggest stocks moving, MTN going down 19% on Thursday and Tencent dropping 5% on Friday after new restrictions on gaming in China. He also looks at Mr. Price's trading statement, Apple unveiling new products, and Amazon heading towards a $1 trillion market cap.

This week, Anthea notes the CPI inflation creeping higher than expected, coming in at 5.1% vs June 4.6% and looks at Blue Label telecom, Bidcorp, Woolworths, Shoprite and Italtile company reports. She discusses how Naspers has bounced this week, starting on Monday, by gaining 4% after it said it was selling Flipkart for $2.2bn - and concludes with Alibaba reporting an almost unbelievable set of results, proving that they are dominating the e-commerce space.

The Turkey drama (“economic war”) continues, dampening demand for Emerging Markets – the Rand hit 15 against the US$ twice last week. Elon Musk is now being investigated by the SEC and playing the sympathy card (which personally, Anthea finds hard to buy). The biggest news for the JSE this week, was the reporting of Chinese company Tencent, which sent Naspers down 8% on the day – gross margins down and operating expenses up; not a good look!

Emerging market currencies blew out last week because of economic and political issues in Turkey, leading the Rand to surpass 14/US$. Anthea also touches on Nedbank, MTN and Glencore report results before discussing African Rainbow Capital buying Tyme Digital Bank. Finally, find out how Elon Musk is making waves by tweeting about taking his company private.

Anthea breaks down this week's financial news which brings about another scary statistic: SA unemployment is at a 15 year high! She also looks at the factors that lead to the Rand taking a beating. And in company news, Impala Platinum announces they are cutting 2/3rd of their workforce while Liberty Holdings and JSE both report. In the US, she also breaks down the recent Tesla and Apple reports.

The Rand is powering ahead on the back of a weaker Dollar, commitments from the Chinese President for Foreign Direct Investment, and talks of BRICS countries rallying together to negate the impact of Trade Wars. Anthea breaks down this week's big financial stories. She also touches on Hulamin, Capco, AECI and Kumba reports locally. On the international front, she comments on Alphabet delivering on extraordinary growth strategy and Facebook making the history books for being one of the biggest drops by value in the history of stock markets.

It's been a slightly positive week on the JSE, despite volatile global markets. CPI Inflation came in lower than expected at 4.6%. SARB, MPC decided to leave rates unchanged; but the governor pointed out the rising oil price and global trade wars as key concerns. Anthea also updates on retailers' reports, MTN selling its Cyprus unit and she also answers the many questions Gareth has around Christo Wiese being named in a R217m SARS claim.

Markets are heavy again this week... we’ll just blame Donald Trump! Trade wars continue as he imposes more tariffs on imported goods. It was a week of unbundling as Torre announced their delisting from Stellar and Tsogo Sun gave details of the separate listing of their properties. Barclays Group Africa is now trading as absa after Wednesday’s relaunch. Tekkie Town has turned into a story of corporate espionage, and more stories emerge of Steinhoff’s underhanded moves to enrich management. Nedbank will facilitate the payment of VBS depositors’ monies, Xiaomi shares tumble on IPO, and Tencent is going through a slew of downgrades. Do you still watch cable TV? If so, you’re a dying breed. Last year, half of Americans aged 22–45 watched ZERO hours of cable TV. But we’re still not sure Netflix is the future of TV.

The JSE and global markets are under pressure on the continued talks of what might now officially be a trade war. Trump has imposed $34bn of import tariffs on goods from China, China immediately responded, and even Russia jumped on the wagon imposing a 25%-40% tariff on yellow metals. There is also a lot of concern over the selling of South African bonds worth R39bn in the first 6 months of the year – bit odd considering bonds are trading so cheaply. PMI Manufacturing data was released, dipping further into contractionary territory in June, falling by 1.9 index points to 47.9. In the mining sector, Angloplats sells stake in Rasimone JV to RBplat for R1.8bn. Glencore released a SENS on Tuesday stating that it has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice, “to produce documents and other records with respect to compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and U.S. money laundering statuses”. In the banking sector, a story hit the news on Tuesday that the Reserve Bank has ordered an investigation into Capitec’s fee charges. Steinhoff was up over 34% after releasing their results late on a Friday night the week before last, and the U.S. added 213,000 jobs last month.

The JSE closed the month 3.5% higher, with all the gains coming on the last trading day of the month! Our currency remains as volatile as ever, 13.82/$ and 18.10 to the Pound. Employment in South Africa‘s non-agriculture sector rose 0.6% in the first quarter of 2018 to 9 838 million people, compared with the previous three months. We’re living through quite a spectacular chain of events, when it comes to the Steinhoff story. Now over 100 Tekkie Town executives and staff have walked out, and the founder is not only suing, but also giving notice on the shops where he owns the buildings. Wiese has sold another R3.9bn worth of Shoprite shares – it must be tough being a billionaire! And Steinhoff finally reports results. Joffe’s Long4Life is buying Rage shoe store chain for R3.9bn, and Old Mutual’s “conscious decoupling” continues, as Quilter lists separately.

The Rand was all over the place last week, weakening to 13.92 /USD on Wednesday and leading to Anthea having tons to comment on this. CPI Inflation moderated slightly to 4.4% - looking good for the consumer. Anthea also explains how the Current Account deficit widening to 4.8% is much of a surprise to most market watchers and economists. She wraps up with company news around Grindrod Shipping, Imperial, Naspers and General Electric.

It was a tough week with the economy contracting 2.2% and the Rand hitting 13.38/US$. South Africa has received an invitation to the G7 meetings for the first time in 7 years. What does Anthea make of this? Hear that, as well as her take on Steinhoff getting a “lifeline” from creditors, Cell C seeking a court interdict against ICASA, and the launch of Rain Mobile. She wraps up with also discussing the tech stocks holding the global markets together last week, as the FANGs and BATTs outperform.

The JSE ended 4.5% lower in May - almost nowhere to hide as the emerging markets risk off trade continues. The Rand hasn’t reacted very well either, and in fact, was lower after the trade balance and PMI manufacturing numbers were released. Oil has come off from $80/bbl. Europe’s having a bad week as political tension in Italy continues and Spain’s Rajoy steps down ahead of his vote of no confidence. US non-farm payrolls printed at 223k, beating Wall Street’s expectations of the US economy adding 193k – unemployment now 3.8%. In company results worth mentioning: Spar, Tongaat and Mr Price all reported. And finally, how much would you pay to have lunch with a famous person? Someone paid R3.3m to have lunch with Warren Buffett... and they’re not even allowed to ask him what his next investment is going to be!

Not a great week on the JSE – two major drivers, firstly the continued sell-off in emerging markets, and secondly, lots of consumer dependent company results... a few bright spots, but predominantly bad news. The SARB left the benchmark interest rate unchanged. S&P leaves SA credit rating unchanged – yay, looks like we’re out of the woods. Massmart was down as much as 18.5% on Thursday after they released a trading statement warning that at their interim results, earnings could be down as much as 70% - when last did you shop at DionWired, Makro or Builders Warehouse? Famous Brands also reported. In this case, the South African operations actually not doing too badly, but the UK Gourmet Burger Kitchen is an absolute disaster and unfortunately, too big in the context of the group for SA to compensate. The Tiger Brands results presentation was a tough one - in fact, one of the analysts even asked the CEO, Lawrence McDougal, why he hasn’t resigned (referring to the death of 200 people caused by their Enterprise product range). Melissa’s food shop has filed for liquidation. STAR attempting to distance themselves from Steinhoff, as they repay R16bn; and Steinhoff, in turn uses that money to repay some of their outstanding debt. Capital and Counties, a company we once held shares in, announced a splitting into two businesses: 1. Covent Garden, and 2. Earls Court development. H&M is looking at South Africa as a potential supplier, with executives from the world's second largest clothing retailer visiting some of the country's main cities last week.

It seems Ramaphoria is well and truly a thing of the past – combined with stronger US dollar and the global emerging markets risk off; our market fell another 1% this week, making the decline this month 3%. Oil hit $80 / bbl this week; something we haven’t seen since 2014. Local construction company, Aveng, was up 29% after the announcement that Murray and Roberts was looking to acquire the company. Richemont fell 4% on Friday, which was a slight recovery on the 7% decline we saw during the day after it reported full year results. Anthea attended a global investment conference at Spier last week, and the general sentiment is that things are going to remain tough in SA, but global markets are still on track for an extended bull run. Tencent managed to defy expectations again; revenue grew 48% y/y. Cambridge Analytica, the company that was at the centre of the Facebook privacy scandal, has filed for bankruptcy. SARB MPC meeting this week - tough to see how with the weaker rand and higher oil price, the committee could decrease interest rates.

Tamzin Nel stands in for Anthea this morning as she reflects on the impact of the dollar slightly coming off its highs towards the end of last week, and what it means for investors if the Fed starts increasing rates. What are the proposed plans for Flipkart after Naspers sold it? Find that out, and so much more here.

Market update: tough week, but a strong finish on Friday as Naspers led the gains, climbing 4.8% on the day. The rand also off its weaker levels, but still quite weak at 12.50/US$. MTN put out a quarterly update. Dis-Chem released a very disappointing set of results. New listing on the JSE: Libstar, the biggest this year (after Consol pulled its listing), comprises of 27 business units which offer consumer products that include specialised food such gluten-free baked products and household goods such as laundry detergents. Jannie Mouton, Founder of PSG and author of his autobiography, 'And Then They Fired Me', put out a SENS announcement in the week, by way of a letter, informing everyone that he has early onset Dementia. US nonfarm payroll employment increased by 164,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9%. Tesla and Apple reported results in the week, with Elon Musk coming across as rather arrogant, and the market punishing him for it. Warren Buffet held his annual AGM (5hrs of answering questions) on Saturday - saying Elon Musk wouldn’t want to come after him in the candy business. Musk is “starting a candy company & it’s going to be amazing,” he said in a Tweet on Saturday… challenge accepted. Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi, has filed for listing, which makes it potentially the largest listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange since 2014.

Henry Biddlecombe stopped by instead of Anthea to talk about earnings season in the US. We talked about Facebook, Alphabet, Netflix and Tesla, among others. The 10-year bull market is making a lot of nervous investors even more nervous. They’re waiting for signs that it’s over. US GDP is up, US unemployment is up and the fact that North Korea and South Korea are making some progress seems to indicate there’s a lot of good (and stability) left in the market. Henry also let us know that Under Armour and Facebook would be a good buy for speculators. Less so Netflix, where the P/E ratio means you’ll be getting those shares at a premium. South Africa could do with an interest rate decrease according to Henry, who like all of us, feels that the public holidays get in the way of productivity this week.

Anthea is back from Ghana and has lots to say about it. The market has been volatile - last month the JSE lost 4.6%, and this month we’re already up >4% (although, nothing like the Cryptocurrency moves this month +75% m-t-d). The Rand is back to pre-Ramaphosa levels at 12.36 vs US$. Oil is above $74/bbl, so where are the Shale producers turning on the taps at $50/bbl and keeping the oil price muted? The Steinhoff AGM was a wet squib, and now trades with a R2 handle. Sagarmatha withdrew their proposed Friday 13th listing… but it’s not so much bad luck as a bad business – not to mention embarrassing for the PIC and Black Business Council, who are/were backers. Google and YouTube’s strong ad sales growth helped Alphabet’s results, as the company made a quarterly profit of $9.4bn. Look out for new content on Netflix, as they sell $1.9bn of junk bonds to finance content acquisition – it is the S&P500’s best performing stock this year up 70% y-t-d.

Markets had a volatile week because of US/China Trade Wars. Even local data has no clear direction as Business Confidence subsides but PMI data improves. In company news, the team debate the resignation of Mark Lamberti from the Eskom board after the court ruling against him; and the Steinhoff share price falls below its 1998 listing level. Spotify listed on the NYSE, making Daniel Ek one of the richest people in Sweden (not Switzerland, as the NYSE might have you believe!)

Global stock markets had a testing week, with the largest decline for the S&P 500 since 2016. While several factors drove the decline, fears of a trade war driven by the U.S. was the principal factor. Facebook had a difficult week, down 10% (wiping $50 billion off its market cap) following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Dropbox bucked the difficult trend for technology shares with a 36% share price rise on its IPO. Locally, Naspers announced intentions to reduce its stake in Tencent from 33% to 31%. Finally, Moody’s kept South Africa’s credit rating at investment grade, upgrading the outlook to stable.

Another week, and talk of another Viceroy report. Suspicion fell on Aspen (again), and even though it wasn’t the pharma, the share still fell from R256 to R230. Volumes were massive this week because of Futures Close-out and index rebalancing; on Thursday $4.2bn exchanged hands and on Friday $3.4bn. The Rand strengthened a bit after the announcement that Zuma would be charged, but our currency is struggling with all this talk of land expropriation. SA Business Confidence was released on Wednesday, and jumped 11 points to an index level of 45 – it was interesting listening to my previous economic lecturer talk about how immediately after the Rubicon Speech the Business Confidence Index fell to 10 and in 2010, when GDP growth was 5% the index hit 85 and even though we struggled a bit post 2008, after the soccer World Cup in 2010, there was a steady increase to 55; but it just could not get back to the 80s. Steinhoff continues to raise cash, this time by selling shares in Kap Industrial. EOH put out a trading statement and announced that they are breaking the company in two – the market did not love any of it. Old Mutual released a decent set of results, and the break up of this company seems to be going well. Patrice Motsepe’s ARC (African Rainbow Capital) also released results. In offshore news, US shares had a bad week on the back of Trump reverting back to old habits ("You’re Fired!"). Toys ’R’ Us are closing all their US stores. Spotify plans to list and Snap market share decreases by another $1bn after the RiRi tweet.

Nice positive market this week (+2.5%) - Naspers carrying the can again and trading above R3500 per share. Tiger Brands took a beating from the Listeriosis findings (-13.5% for the week). Exxaro plummeted >13% on Friday after a management breakfast and the release of an HSBC report downgrading the stock. The Rand well below 12/US$ after our Q4’17 GDP growth number surprised, printing at a whopping 3.1% for the quarter. The US added 313k jobs in February. Hundreds of thousands of job seekers returning to the market, but they still managed to keep unemployment at the 17-year low of 4.1%. Ethiopia (population 88m) is the largest country in the world without a stock exchange and is one of about 40 countries without a stock exchange out of roughly 200 nations in the world. But they do have a commodities exchange (dominated by soft commodities).

There was a plethora of results last week; some of the big ones include: Bidvest, Shoprite, Anheuser Busch InBev, Nedbank, Mondi, Barclays (or is that ABSA?). The CEO of Ascendis Healthcare, Karsten Wellner, resigns and the share bounces from below R10 per share (1st Feb) to above R14 (at close on Friday). Steinhoff imploded on Friday after the JSE suspended their Bonds and Preference shares, and emails surface that point to management collusion. And Donald Trump thinks it’s a good idea to impose increased import tariffs on exporting countries he doesn’t like.

Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore reported last week. A German court postponed a ruling on whether German cities can ban diesel cars, which will have a massive effect on our platinum industry. H&M’s share price is down 40% over the last year (most of the fall since November). Kylie Jenner's tweet drops shares of Snap by 6%, and Warren Buffett released his shareholder letter on Saturday.

What a cracker of a week (that’s technical asset management speak for: the JSE was up 5.7%) and the Rand ended 11.63 (touched 11.56) against the US$. Local shares (especially banks) were flying! Property shares still under pressure after the “anonymous report” was released and they opened 15% lower on Monday. Where to from here for the stock market? There’s a bit of a titanic struggle happening in the US markets between the bonds, currency and equities markets. Some good news: SA Unemployment rate was slightly down in Q4’17 to 26.7% from 27.7%. Budget coming up on Wednesday – in October the deficit was R50bn, free tertiary education could add another R40bn, as well as the still bloated cabinet (see graph below) – not to mention the other leakages we don’t yet know about. What are we expecting? Discovery put out a trading update last week and will report results on Tuesday… already up 45% in the last year and it’s not a cheap stock on 25.8x Price Earnings ratio, but is this our “Warren Buffet style” investment? Phenomenal growth, global domination, USP (Unique Selling Point) and the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid)?

Local bonds traded stronger on the back of a stronger Rand - which leaves us in an interesting position as we look to cut rates and the US looks to raise interest rates. A bloodbath start to the week with an equity market correction so many have been waiting for. VIX, the Volatility Index - also known as the fear index - hit a high of 50 (it normally trades around low/mid teens). Oil was down over 3% on Wednesday when oil production numbers got released. Christo Wiese has sold most of his holding in Steinhoff and now owns a mere 6.5%. Investec has a new CEO - or two! Hendrik du Toit and Fani Titi. Is this what is meant by BEE? And Disney reported a spectacular set of results.

Our market was the most volatile it's been in a long time and posted the biggest weekly loss in two years. The Rand weakened swiftly to trade back above 12/US Dollar. Lesetja Kganyago was named Central Banker of the year (Ballon d’or for economists). Eskom released results – they’re still in a dire financial position, but the market is liking what the new team are saying. Property stocks are also under pressure... but the big story of the week was all about Fraser Perring’s Viceroy research and the report they put out damning Capitec Bank. In the US, the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee equivalent to our Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee) kept rates on hold as expected, and they added 200k jobs last month. Apple reported a decent set of results and Amazon reported spectacular results, doubling expected earnings.

Great week on the JSE, the Rand traded below $12USD for the first time since April 2015 and the stock market ended almost a percent higher (despite the stronger Rand) – great combination of Cyril making all the right noises in Davos, the weaker dollar and stronger commodity prices. It was also a good week generally for resources, banks and retailers - except Woolworths which wrote down R7bn related to David Jones in Australia... turning out to be not-their-best purchase. Steinhoff did a private placement of PSG shares, raising R7.1bn. Offshore though, Richemont has now purchased all the shares in Yoox-Net-a-Porter. Adapt IT released some exceptional results, with organic growth jumping 17% (versus previous 4%). CPI Inflation came out slightly higher than expected at 4.7%, but still well within the 3-6% target range. In the US, GDP printed at 2.6% for the fourth quarter.

On balance, a good week: market ended positive, the Rand still relatively strong and Eskom has a new board and acting CEO (at the eleventh hour). November retail sales surprised to the upside, coming in at 8.2% versus market expectations of 3.5% - looks like Black Friday sales worked! Unfortunately the positivity hasn’t flowed through to all the retailers who put out trading updates: Woolworths, Shoprite & The Foschini group. The MPC leaves interest rates – voting 5:2, and Viceroy shortseller is unveiled.

Global markets are hitting all-time highs, the Dow Jones breached the 25,000 level for the first time this week, and oil is at a three-year high. It was a messy week on the JSE but we still managed a positive close; the JSE closed above the 60,000 level this week (it hit 61,000 in November and retraced since - thank you Naspers). The drama was in Aspen which was down 10% on Tuesday alone; Resilient, Rockcastle/Nepi and other property stocks got severely beaten down – all because of speculation on the next Viceroy report target. JP Morgan released results, and they have a R1.7bn loss related to one levered derivatives position (word on the street is it’s a Steinhoff position). There is still value in our market - find out Anthea's top three stock picks on the JSE and why she's chosen them.

We look at the stock market performance for 2017 and compare the JSE with global market performance. Anthea talks MTN and how there announcement of writing down a loan had a negative impact on profitability – and how it differs from what Steinhoff did. She also touches on why Travis Kalanick sold shares and how the US created 148k jobs in December.

Despite being halfway through December, the volumes have not dropped, on Friday alone $4.4bn traded – no surprise really as the Steinhoff drama is not over; still lots of short covering and on Thursday Christo Wiese alone had a R1bn margin call. Naspers hosted their first Investor day in NYC on Tuesday, it hasn’t really satisfied the market; the share closes at R3310 on Friday; lots of “non-talk” about how to unlick the 40% discount the share is now trading at. Neil Froneman has gone shopping again… now Sibanye-Stillwater is buying Lonmin. PPC has rolled over as the last bidder, Lafarge/Holcim withdraws its bid. Standard Bank has a new CEO for the South African business, and as expected, the US raised interest rates by 0.25%.

Some good news with SA's Q3 GDP coming in at 2%. The Steinhoff saga continues: since Jooste’s resignation R223.8bn has been wiped off the exchange. Naspers is not out of the woods yet as US-based legal firm, Pomerantz starts an investigation and calls for shareholders to come to them for a class action lawsuit. CRH has withdrawn their bid for PPC, EOH is under huge pressure this week, despite no tangible or fundamentally based news stories... and the US economy added 228k new jobs in November.

The market suffered last week under a stronger than expected Rand and a weak Naspers, despite a good set of results. Private Sector Credit extension was weaker than expected at 5.4% year on year. US consumer confidence hit an all-time high as the S&P500 index hit record highs. In company news - FirstRand’s Laurie Diepenaar steps down to make way for Jardine, Advtech has voluntarily disclosed a fraud at top management, and Bidvest confirms the sale of Comair.

CPI inflation was released, coming in slightly lower than expected. SARB kept rates unchanged – the uncertainty was too much for them to handle... and there is lots to talk about credit ratings agencies. PPC rejects Fairfax offer, Mr Price looks like it is getting back on its feet, and Taste Holdings is unable to sell their jewellery business and has to raise almost their market cap in a rights issue. Plus, the US jobless claims are below 300k for the 142nd consecutive week.

The market gained three quarters of a percent last week, mostly driven by Naspers on the back on Tencent’s exceptional results. Consolidated Infrastructure fell 60% in one day last week. Tongaat reported results, and Vodacom reported results - the share was punished for a disappointing dividend. We look forward to the MPC and the credit rating agencies this week.

The JSE hit an all-time high last week, but has subsequently retraced a bit. Macro: SACCI Business Confidence figures were released last week, and it’s just not getting better. Steinhoff is in “trouble” with the German authorities again - this time because they did not disclose a “material” transaction. Brait released a trading statement and Imperial - the car and logistics business - sold their chemicals business unit Schirm to AECI. Richemont reported results – profit up 45%, Tencent buys more of Snapchat, and Alibaba generated a record $25bn in sales on Singles day.

The Rand fell 4% for the month of October, but it translated into a 5.7% gain on the stock market. Some good and some bad news on the economic data front for SA, and the Bank of England raises interest rates for the first time in 10 years. In the US, non-farm payrolls disappointed and Trump has put forward his candidate, Jay (Jerome) Powell, to replace Janet Yellen when her term ends in February. There wasn’t much in SA company news, the focus was all in the US: Facebook, Tesla, Mastercard, Pfizer and ‘the great and good’ Apple (getting closer to being a $1trn market capitalisation company).

The Rand reacted swiftly to the very disappointing budget, but at least the weaker Rand had a positive effect on the Stock market. Rand hedges were higher this week (Naspers now R3407 per share), and both Clicks and Dis-Chem reported some decent numbers. Also reporting, was ABInBev – saved by SABMiller and the emerging market consumer... as did Old Mutual Wealth (the UK business makes up 28% of the valuation of Old Mutual). AVI started trading under a cautionary. PPC has announced a bid from Lafarge Holcim, which sent the stock over R7 on Friday. And Amazon’s spectacular results has made Jeff Bezos the wealthiest man in the world again.

The Rand is blowing out on all the political shenanigans this week – cabinet reshuffle, rumours of CR17 and President Putin. A weaker Rand is good for Rand hedges, but bad for local shares. CPI inflation was very disappointing at 4.6% (headline inflation came in at 5.1%) – fuel inflation (5% of CPI basket) jumped 12.2% in Sept (vs 5.7% in Aug). And again, we’re seeing a local company look offshore for acquisition: FSR announced that they’re buying UK specialist lender Aldermore, Group 5 let a R1.6bn offer from Greenbay Properties lapes on Friday, and DSY finally got their banking license. Pick n Pay released H1’18 results and Richemont also released results - it looks like things have finally turned for the luxury goods sector. US earnings season has started with a bang as Netflix released results and the share was up over 4%... same story with Paypal, the share was also up >4% on the day of results. We’ve got SA Budget on Wednesday at 2pm – lots of questions about Nuclear.

Market update – out of the last ten trading days, we only had one negative close, while the Rand continues to strengthen - currently 13.26 / US$. Some good news in the manufacturing sector as August prints at 1.5% growth vs expectations of ½ % contraction. In company news, the PPC saga continues and Mondi released Q3 results – a shocker of a result, but is there a nice surprise waiting for us as they de-lever their balance sheet? PSG releases H1 results – good old steady eddie. Sun International acquires Thunderbird Resorts in Peru – are they really ready to acquire again, after a less than incredible run in the last year? Founder and CEO of Outsurance, Willem Roos, resigns – what impact will this have on the company?

The JSE has reached all-time highs despite the economy still struggling along, while there are lots of companies either unbundling, being taken over or bids being retracted. The US employment number decreased for the first time since Sept 2010, thanks to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma (or is it Trump?). And Anthea warns of the perils of corruption and how the Transnet pension fund was used to aid the Gupta purchase of Optimum Coal mine.

Market update: Even the 1% positive close on Friday couldn’t save the JSE from a negative September (-1.2% for the month). There was very little company news and on the macro front, Private Sector Credit Extension was released and indicates that the consumer is deleveraging 6.6% y/y and we managed to maintain a Trade Surplus of R6bn (vs the previous month’s R9.3bn. We discuss the SAA bailout which saw NT approve a transfer of R3bn from the National Revenue Fund. Anthea is disappointed by the WEF annual competitiveness report showing that SA fell 14 points to be ranked 61. And in the US, jobless claims climbed by 12k to 272k and US 2nd Quarter GDP growth came in at 3.1%

The Rand weakened for a sixth straight session on Friday (-1.3%) and the stock market remained soggy, falling another ½% - with all major indices lower. Commodity catch up: Gold lower ahead of ECN and US Fed meeting this week (especially after last week’s US consumer inflation number). Oil is at 5 month highs and Iron Ore has slumped after Chinese data printed lower than expected. Curro have announced the listing of their tertiary business. STAR will list on Wednesday after being 4.8x oversubscribed. HCI (Hosken Consolidated Investments) will carve out their transport business Bolden Arrow Bus Services) – in true complicated HCI fashion. And what is happening with Bitcoin now? It's down almost 30% in the last six sessions.

Quite a few companies reporting this week - AVI today, Aspen and Impala Platinum on Thursday, Richemont on Wednesday. It's the launch of the Apple iPhone 8 tomorrow, plus several new products including a new version of the Apple Watch and Apple TV. The iPhone is about two-thirds of Apple’s revenue with the share up 37% this year, making them the world’s most valuable company. The JSE All Share is up 12% for the year. Naspers is up 42% this year and makes up close to 20% of the index.

Global markets started the day stronger on Friday because of positive Chinese manufacturing data, and somehow even the US opened strongly despite weaker than expected non-farm payrolls. The US reported creating 156,000 jobs for the month of August versus an expecting 180,000 – wage growth remained constant at 2.5%y/y. The Dollar initially weakened, leaving the stronger Rand to keep our market in check. We discuss Discovery, Stellar Capital and Mr Price reports. Jannie Mouton has transferred R1bn into a charitable trust after seeing an interview with a smiling Warren Buffet talk about giving away 99% of his wealth.

We had 5 straight days of gains last week, with the All Share index ending just a tenth of a percent higher on Friday, and 2.6% higher for the week. Retailers: we dissect Woolworths and Massmart results; not a pretty picture. Let’s have a conversation about the value of your vote as a shareholder, shareholder activism and Naspers. Koos Bekker (Chairman of Naspers) said at the AGM on Friday on the notion of corporate governance: “It sounds wonderful. If you want to be the best soccer team in the world it is important to wash your hands after using the bathroom. But will you win? Not unless you train the hardest, recruit the best and are merciless in your ambition. Once you have won, then you can look at things. If you lose, the best governance in the world can’t help you.” No surprise… Yellen’s last speech at Jackson Hole was - as suspected - a damp squib, while (super) Mario Draghi confirmed that the ECB will continue the process of eliminating quantitative easing.

Friday ended a third of a percent lower on the markets, but thanks to Naspers’s 5% rally we managed a 0.3% positive close for the week. Education stocks ADvTECH and Curro reported last week. We had a flurry of miners report: Harmony and Goldfields both reported flat gold production numbers and negative cash flow, while Exxaro was “saved” by their coal assets; and Sibanye Gold released a trading statement which implies a very different company to the one they were last year. And while everyone was enjoying after work Friday drinks, Bidvest released a trading statement saying that Brian Joffe had resigned from the company with immediate effect.

The global markets were mixed and despite the weaker Rand, the JSE was under a lot of pressure, falling over 1% on Friday. The US managed a positive close despite muted inflation figures. Alviva, formerly known as Pinnacle, was up over 2% after releasing a decent trading update. Naspers was down almost 3% after a report saying that China’s online watchdog is investigating Tencent. And Disney - who own the top media library - have announced they are pulling all their content from Netflix.

Market update: we’ve had a nice little rally, up ½% on Friday bringing the week’s gain to 2%. But the Rand has suffered quite a blow this week, last trading at 13.47 to the US Dollar on Friday, partly driven by a stronger greenback after the US non-farm payroll numbers surprised to the upside. It looks like Wiese is not giving up just yet on combining his Steinhoff and Shoprite assets, they announced on Friday that Steinhoff is looking to take a controlling stake in Shoprite. Both paper companies, Mondi and Sappi, reported last week. Companies like Amazon, Takealot and Superbalist are reviving the industry with all the boxed home deliveries.

We started the day negative in the markets, and then managed a little bounce in the afternoon to end the day flat. Barclays Africa reported disappointing half year results and tobacco companies plummeted on Friday after the FDA announcement that they want to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes. Naspers fell almost half a percent on Friday as tech stocks retreated after Amazon results. Jeff Bezos was only briefly the richest man on Thursday, until the results disappointed. US GDP growth came in at 2.6% q/q – much stronger than the previous 1.2%, with oil bouncing again... and our local energy department have announced a petrol hike.

Seleho Tsatsi stands in for Anthea in this edition of The Money Shot.

Market update: It’s been an exceptional week; the bulls were out with a vengeance – the market was up 5 consecutive days in a row. Friday saw the Rand rally briefly below 13 against the US dollar as news broke of the mining charter being suspended. Despite the stronger Rand, our market managed to close ½% in the green with Financials having an incredible run. Even retailers were stronger on the day (even WHL after their disappointing Trading Statement the day before). It’s not even worth talking about Eskom wanting to pay Molefe and Koko bonuses, even though they only have money to pay salaries until November unless they get another state loan. Brian Joffe’s Long4Life made it official that they are buying Sorbet (beauty therapy chain). Richemont’s head watchmaker George Kern has resigned. Of the 25 S&P500; companies that have reported, 19 have already beat analysts’ expectations; while US macro data on Friday disappointed – we do a quick overview.

The Rand is still weak and volumes low. The All Share Index was down ¾% on Friday. Global markets are nervous as Central Banks talk about tapering. The JSE announces details of their cost optimisation plans. Flash crash in Silver on Friday and a halt in trading, is only one of the symptoms of metals reactions this week. Gold and Platinum are also under pressure. US non-farm payrolls surprised to the upside, coming in at 222k, while the expectation was for 178k jobs to be created.

Market update: overall the JSE closed ½% higher on Friday which means for the month we are “only” 2.5% down. The Rand had a complete blowout on Friday afternoon: was it that a date has been set for the vote of no confidence or that Reuters reported that Gigaba said SA may have to get help from IMF (does he even know what that means?). Or maybe it was the announcement that SAA will receive a R2.3bn bailout? Private sector credit extension on the increase… how is it possible that banks are lending more money to consumers in this environment? Naspers raised R1bn via a bond issue through its international arm, Myriad International – nice shopping purse. Nike reported a decent set of results last week, just after Bloomberg ran a story saying that “Not even Tiger Woods could make Golf profitable for Nike".

The Market finally had a positive day, lifted by macro-economic data and Naspers. Oil continues to fall. Naspers released full financial results, sending the share 2.6% higher. Astral Foods bounced just over a percent after falling 6% the previous day on the back of news of avian flu on one of their farms. eTV has had five bids for the company in the last year.

The main focus of Thursday was the Mining Charter, which weighed on resources and our market in general. The All Share Index was down 1.3%. It was a huge day on the market thanks to Derivatives Close-Out; $5.4bn (R69.5bn) traded. Naspers released a trading statement, core headline earnings per share will be up between 33-39%. Peregrine released results (we have a small allocation to the share in the Aggressive portfolio). Comair - which we put on as a trading idea last week - also released their trading statement, HEPS will be up at least 20%. Global markets closed in the green on Friday, so hopefully we’ll play catch up.

Despite falling into recession, Moody’s decided to downgrade SA by only one notch, leaving us at investment grade. But that does not mean we can relax, there is nothing stopping them from downgrading us again in a couple of months (weeks if we do something stupid). Our local market managed a third of a percent gain thanks to a late afternoon bounce. PPC was in demand after they reported on Thursday. UK and European markets ended higher as May wasted no time announcing an alliance with Democratic Unionist Party, but that seems to be unravelling as news broke over the weekend that DUP hasn’t yet agreed to support May. Comey’s testimony hasn’t had a hugely negative impact on the US markets: Dow Jones was up 0.42% but tech stocks got sold off after Goldman Sachs' CIO commented that there was more risk in tech stocks than investors were accounting for. Nasdaq was down almost 2%.

Fitch kept our rating unchanged, which sent the Rand to 12.80 vs the US Dollar and weighed on our market. For the week the local market fell 2.2% despite a flat to slightly positive close. PPC put out a trading update which led us to talk about other companies that are also expanding into Africa. After market close, S&P also confirmed our rating citing the usual concerns of weaker growth, political risk and contingent liabilities. The US added 138,000 new jobs for the month of May versus the expected 186,000.

The local market closed flat to negative, which was pretty much the picture across the globe. The Foschini Group are venturing into Australia, announcing that they bought Retail Apparel Group for AUD302.5m. Steinhoff announced they’re buying a majority stake in Sherwood Bedding. TigerBrands reported results and Massmart put out a trading update - an indicator of how the economy is going (or not going). Edcon and Net1UPS are both getting new CEOs. On Thursday a share (RFG) was added to our #Invest portfolios and since then it’s up 7%.

Markets holding up well despite global geopolitical concerns (especially in Emerging Markets). SNH up 9.5% in two days post the announcement of a spin-off of the African assets. Tongaat, Nedbank, Dis-Chem and Investec all reported. We discuss the fall of Stuttafords.

Our market ended lower on Friday, but higher for the week (Naspers closed over R2700 per share). Richemont reported results. Life Healthcare and Telkom put out a trading update. Europe ended the week stronger as Germany released GDP growth numbers. In the US earnings reporting season is now 91% complete. They reported Inflation and retail sales numbers.

Commodities are still volatile with oil now trading at levels before the big OPEC agreement to cut production last year. The Rand is slightly weaker and market slightly stronger. Net1 UEPS (the holding company for Cash Paymaster Services, the company embroiled in the SASSA grants saga) reported on Friday. US non-farm payrolls came in much better than expected, the US created 211k jobs in the month of April. Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger held the annual Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting this weekend - some interesting things came out of that. And it looks like Macron and his En Marche! party are set to win the French elections - watch that Euro…

The global asset prices are still under pressure, with oil now trading closer to $50/bbl – is the trump trade faltering? Pioneer food group put out a trading statement on Friday and the share fell 4½% - is this a sign of things to come for the SA consumer? Recently listed Pembury Lifestyle reported last week. Do we want to be invested in the new Africa big-50 ex-SA ETF? S&P revised the outlook for African Bank from negative to Stable and left them at B+ (which is higher than our sovereign rating). How will the outcome of the French elections impact markets?

Global markets are still nervous with all the attacks (Syria, Sweden and now Egypt). Our local market spent most of the day in negative territory, but was relatively busy considering the marches. Datatec closed the day 7% higher after announcing that they are selling Westcon-Comstar. Capital & Counties was also higher after announcing that they are selling exhibition centres. Fitch downgraded South Africa to sub-investment grade, and US non-farm payrolls are much lower than expected.

As Friday’s market traded on the cabinet reshuffle, it looks like there was a lot of repositioning of portfolios both selling and opportunistic buying as $2.9bn was traded. The market was tough, so much so that the JSE reported technical difficulties as shares went into volatility auction. Amongst the chaos, Pembury listed on Friday, and we got official news that Brian Joffe is listing a new company called Long4Life. SA posted R5.22 billion ($391.42 million) trade surplus in February. US Consumer spending for February was released and indications was that it barely moved.

The global markets remain cautious. We discuss Advtech's results, Capitec buying an international online lender, Anthea has found an interesting Nasdaq-listed tech company Impinj that looks attractive, and things are looking a bit nervy for Nike.

We catch up with Charles Pettit, CEO of Stellar Capital, to hear what plans he has for the listed investment holding company. Gareth and Anthea want to know if they should still be holding onto their SCP shares, and which part of the business he would like to see the growth come from.

Another big day on the market on Friday - $2.3bn traded, but markets consolidated and the All Share gave back half a percent. Remgro reported a disappointing set of interim results. We also speak about US Activist shareholder, Bill Ackman, who crystallised a $2.8bn loss on the sale of Valeant.