Sorbet and sore shares

Good Morning Voornaam,

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Ghost Bites:

If you saw yesterday's pressure on the Mr Price share price after this update, you'll understand why I'm worried about retail as we head into the festive season. With bloated inventories at all retailers at the moment and consumers under pressure, there are clear macroeconomic risks.

In addition to these stories, I also covered the various HCI-related entities that released updates, as well as Stefanutti Stocks' numbers along with Safari Investments. When we are in a busy earnings season on the JSE, I genuinely don't know how else you would keep up other than by reading Ghost Bites>>>

Build a more valuable business

Regular readers will know that one of the businesses in my ecosystem is bizval, an online valuation tool that I'm very proud of. Through using my investment banking background and my experience in real-wor ld deals, I worked with my co-founders to build a tool that gives founders an advanced valuation calculator that is easy to use and affordable.

To give you insight into how tough the journey is for entrepreneurs and the risks along the way, there's a bizval podcast episode that will appeal to anyone who needs to make a tough decision in their business. You'll find it here>>>

To help you understand more about the value drivers in a business and how to increase the value of the company, we host regular webinars. A recent two-part series dealt with concepts ranging from revenue resilience through to the delicate balancing act of working capital. You can watch both recordings here>>>

The next bizval webinar is something a bit different, with two special guests joining us to talk about their stories in building direct-to-consumer businesses in the fashion and jewellery markets. Attendance for this event on 1 December at noon is free. You just need to register here>>>

DealMakers is spoiling us today

There's no shortage of insights from the team at DealMakers today, that's for sure. Aside from the usual summaries of South African M&A, corporate activity in South Africa and M&A in Africa, there are three opinion pieces:

75 basis points it is

As widely expected (and discussed in detail yesterday by TreasuryONE), the SARB hiked by 75 basis points. The vote was only 3-2 in favour of this hike. Inflation is expected to be back within the 3% to 6% target band in 2023. TreasuryONE can see another 50 basis points hike in January and then a pause in the hiking cycle, subject to what the Fed does in December.

The dollar is still under pressure, with emerging markets enjoying the reprieve. With lockdowns happening in China again, the risk-on momentum of the past three weeks may start running out of steam. A significant US in flation print before the next FOMC meeting could slam the brakes on this story, with the world being far from a rosy place. UK headline inflation for October printed at 11.1% and most world economies are talking about a recession.

Gold was bolstered by the Fed minutes, holding above $1,750 per ounce. Oil remains under pressure as China lockdowns dampen the demand for oil in the short term. Base metals (copper, aluminium etc.) are also trading lower on demand concerns from China.

What do wealth managers think of alternative investments?

In the latest episode of Magic Markets, Dino Zuccollo returned to the show to talk about the fascinating results of a recent survey that Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management ran with a group of independent wealth managers. With questions th at focused on the popularity of alternative assets, the priority for investors (yield vs. capital) and the preference for offshore exposure, the results made for a great show. Listen to it here>>>

With that, I leave you to a busy Friday and a great weekend!