I stayed at home on Tuesday and watched the rare transit of Venus. My solar telescope was a lash up of a pair of binoculars, a work bench and vice, and a computer monitor turntable all held together with a mess of cable ties. For a screen I used the back of the October page (the buffalo picture) from last year’s wildlife calendar, taped to the bread board. With this kit I managed to project a wonderfully clear image of the serene and stately progress of our sister planet across the disc of the sun. The buffalo didn’t seem to mind.
The bull in the market was this week similarly unmoved by events. A contented looking Reserve Bank Governor made the predicted “no change to repo rate” announcement and this too failed to stir the oxpeckers perched on his mud-smeared flanks. The bull’s flanks that is. Most indices will end the week perhaps just a tad above where they were a week ago.
Regular readers will know that I am continually searching the US news for evidence of the bursting of all the various bubbles that I believe to be rife in those markets. But this week they were busy entertaining a crowd of poor people from Africa at a working lunch and preparing to say good bye to Ronald Regan. Remember that for us, next week will also have just four working days.
On Monday, Standard Bank will be publishing the details of the retail placing leg of their new preference share. Already we do know that they have exploited their premier rating relative to the other two banks that have already come to the market with such an issue. The dividend rate on the Standard Bank pref will be a mere 70% of the current prime lending rate (11.5%pa), not the 75% that Investec and Nedbank are paying. My back of the envelope sums suggest that with a dividend of 8.1%pa on the 1000cps offer, the price of the pref, after listing, could rise to around 1050cps. I shall keep you informed on how to go about applying. I believe the minimum application could be as large as R100000.
There’s no rain forecast for Bloemfontein so I guess that muddy flanks will not be a problem when the ‘boks meet the Irish there tomorrow. A party of my colleagues are attempting to travel to the match via the dubious approach of floating a bus in beer. But I think that “It will get untidy”.
Have a warm weekend.
James Greener
11 June 2004
