JSEDirect with Simon Brown

Offshore / US elections over / US unemployment rate 6.9% / Ant IPO cancelled / BoE no change & QE increased by £150 billion to £895 billion / Berkshire Hathaway bought back a record $9 billion in stock in the third quarter Local / Rand strength / Results; Dis-Chem, Richemont & Foschini / Aspen vaccine JV with J&J

Simon Shares US Election results pretty much playing as expected. Trump doing well in early counting but some important states still to come but he has declared victory and is heading for the courts. Upcoming events; 05 November ~  JSE Power Hour: Searching for income 19 November ~ Twenty years of ETFs Subscribe to our feed  here Subscribe or review us in  iTunes Finding infrastructure stocks Glob...

Simon Shares Distell Group (JSE code: DHG) issued a solid update albeit short on numbers with one exception. They reduced net debt by some R1.7billion which is a massive number. Pick n Pay (JSE code: PIK) is heading into Nigeria and the market is worried as Nigeria is littered with the bodies of corporate South Africa. But they are doing so in smaller regional malls and not going big, so if it fai...

Simon Shares PPC (JSE code: PPC) results. The $150million debt in the DRC is the problem. If they solve that they'll do a rights issue. If not they're bankrupt. The president's speech on Thursday should give them some hope as he likely promises lots of energy and infrastructure spending. Balwin (JSE code: BWN) results. Not bad considering, they paid a dividend and I like them at current prices. Co...

Offshore / The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, for the 2020 fiscal year, the U.S. deficit will be $3.13 trillion (15.2% of GDP). This number would cause the total U.S. national debt to come in at 102% of GDP in 2020, the first time since 1946 that the U.S. debt has been larger than its economy. / A new stimulus package on or off the table? / The U.K. economy grew by 2.1% in August, les...

Simon Shares How to fix the JSE, some great ideas by Keith McLachlan. SARB buys R39.4billion of local government bonds in the secondary market in September. French Canal+ takes 6.5% stake in Multichoice (JSE code: MCG). Shoprite* (JSE code: SHP) says their loyalty program is a huge part of them gaining R4billion in market share? Launched a year ago it has over 5million members. Pick n Pay (JSE cod...

Offshore / Trump Covid-19 with elections 4 weeks away. / US unemployment 7.9% / Disney to lay off 28,000, American Airlines 19,000 & 12,000 United Airlines / Palantir lists with direct listing / Airbnb listing progressing with $20billion valuation Local / Unemployment numbers / August CPI 3.1% / Capitec results / Alviva results / Ascendis Health results (issued, cancelled and re-issued) / Remgro r...

Simon Shares Day 188 of lockdown. August CPI 3.1%. Everybody now suddenly knows about the expanded unemployment rate? Capitec* (JSE code: CPI) results were as always solid. Hit hard by the pandemic, but resilient. Valuations are rich, as always. Alviva (JSE code: AVV). Remember old Pinnacle, once a darling and then hit by claims of dodge tenders. They bought Datacentrix changed their name to Alviv...

Simon Shares Day 181 of lockdown. The Tongaat (JSE code: TON) deal to sell their starch unit to Barloworld for R5.35billion is happening and the Tongaat share price loved the news. We're seeing a strong bounce locally while the US markets are also having a better run, risk back on (for now). But what was odd was gold. It didn't run as stocks were selling off and has actually weakened. The point is...

Offshore / BoE, Fed and BOJ all left rates unchanged, BoE 'explores' negative rates. / TikTok deal with Oracle (and Walmart) confirmed. / Wechat ban from midnight, 3.3million users in America and China threatens to expand its "unreliable entities list". But "TRUMP'S PROHIBITION ON WECHAT IN U.S. IS PUT ON HOLD BY JUDGE" / OECD ups global 2020 gdp, but drops ours / Snowflake IPO price of $120 and i...

Simon Shares Day 174 of lockdown. Level 1? The Foschini Group (JSE code: TFG) trading update spooked the market, but it was the six months to end September. In other words, all lockdown. African Rainbow Capital (JSE code: AIL) results including an R750million non-renounceable rights issue. Trading at some 75% discount to the net asset value (NAV). Sure some decent assets, but the market has hated...

Offshore / US markets remain volatile as Nasdaq has worst week since March / LVMH Tiffany deal is off/delayed / Brexit talks going all messy / UK economy grew 6.6% in July as gradual recovery continues / Opec turns 60 Local / Q2 GDP -51%, or -16.4% / Firstrand results / Shoprite results / Aspen sale & results / Zeder CEO quits and the company is looking for a new strategy / White & yellow maize ab...

Simon Shares Day 167 of lockdown. Local Q2 GDP -16.4% (-51% if you annualise it). Makes us one of the worst-hit economies for Q2, not surprising as we did very hard lockdown. Now to get out of the hole and that's going to be the hard part. Of our three main political parties, the honest answer is none of them really have a workable economic policy that we need right now. Serious buying of SA inc s...

Offshore / US unemployment 8.4% (Temporary Census work (+238,000 jobs) accounted for around one-sixth of the August gain of 1.4 million jobs) / Thursday sell-off with Friday red, but less bad. Monday closed for labour day. / India bans another 188 Chinese apps / Carnival Corporation's Costa Cruises to Restart Cruise Operations This Weekend out of Italy. / Tesla does not go into the S&P500. Instead...

Simon Shares Day 160 of lockdown. Northam (JSE code: NHM) results had two comments that caught my attention. They are aggressively buying back their Zambezi pref shares (JSE code: ZPLP). The second was that the amount of rhodium used in a single catalytic converter was 0.3g in 2015 and will be 0.45g in 2025. A 50% increase that supports the price increase. Hammerson (JSE code: HMN) have consolidat...

Offshore / Tesla and Apple stock split today / Changes to the dow Jones; Salesforce.com will replace Exxon Mobil, Amgen will replace Pfizer and Honeywell International will replace Raytheon Technologies / Reports that Walmart and Microsoft liked up to buy TicTok / ADP Employment Report on Wednesday / New Zealand exchange closes three times last week after cyber attacks / CNBC reports that U.S. tec...

Simon Shares Day 153 of lockdown and Covid-19. Pro-active passive management Investec USD SP500 Autocall Upcoming events; 03 September ~ JSE Power Hour: Under the hood of a passive robo advisor Subscribe to our feed  here Sign up for email alerts  as a new show goes live Master Drilling (JSE code: MDI), strong and monster cash generation which shows the cash output when they're not spending on new...

Offshore / New highs for the S&P500 (and Nasdaq) / Between the market high on Feb. 19 and new high on Aug. 18, 38% of stocks in the index made gains while the remaining 62% posted losses / Apple hits US$2trillion and gets into a fight with Fortnight / Ryanair cuts September, October capacity by 20% on weak bookings / Japan's economy shrank by nearly 28% in the second quarter & consumer spending de...

Simon Shares Day 146 of lockdown and Covid-19, new cases definitely on the decline and hence we're now in level 2. S&P500 closed Tuesday at all-time highs. Sasol (JSE code: SOL) after liking the update the market does not like the results. Truworths (JSE code: TRU) has now written down GBP231million of the GBP256million they paid for Office in 2015. Afrimat (JSE code: AFT) buys Coza iron ore for R...

Offshore US Retail sales disappoint - rise 1.2% in July vs 7.5% gain in June But new unemployment claims finally drops below 1million, the first time in 21 weeks UK GDP horror Chinese retail sales dropped 1.1% YoY, for the 7th seventh month US stimulus (trump EOs) Tesla 5:1 split via a special dividend Airbnb is filing for IPO this month with plans to go public by the end of the year. Local Sasol...

"This week's episode of JSE Direct is courtesy of IG, our preferred supplier in trading products." Simon Shares Day 139 of lockdown and Covid-19, new cases definitely on the decline. Clicks (JSE code: CLS) trading update again shows that this company is a machine. Revenue +10% for the 49 weeks to 9 August 2020. Residential property, at the lower end, doing really well. Gold $2,044 last week, hit $...

"This week's episode of JSE Direct is courtesy of Outvest, our preferred supplier in retirement products." Simon Shares Day 132 of lockdown and Covid-19, new cases definitely on the decline. Pick 'n Pay (JSE code: PIK) update was somewhat of a horror show, but I'm not sure what the market was expecting. It is for the period of lockdown and includes a voluntary retrenchment that cost the company. T...

Offshore / US earnings season / Q2 GDP data is coming in at about -10% / US jobless claims remain stuck at around 1.4million and CARES has ended, albeit congress is in talks / Alphabet says WFH until summer 2021 & Zuckerberg says there's 'no end in sight' for Facebook employees WFH / Big tech results (Amazon, FB, Alphabet & Apple) knock it out the park / Big tech breakup congressional hearings Loc...

Simon Shares Day 126 of lockdown and Covid-19, cases may be moderating? Sasol (JSE code: SOL) sells some assets for R8.5billion and the stock is up over 12%. The sale is SA gas operations at Secunda. A sale and leaseback as Sasol only customer. But gets Sasol cash to pay down debt so good news short term, less so long-term. Korean websites also reporting on a possible 50% sale of US Ethane Crackin...

Offshore / 1.42 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in the week ending July 18, up from 1.3 million a week earlier / Gold through $1,900 / EU leaders have agreed to a €750b ($857b) stimulus package (US is in talks for their next round of support) / Tesla into sp500 / Results; Microsoft msft & Intel intc Local / MPC rate cut / IMF loan to be announced tonight, R70billion / MTN updat...