This week’s remarks will make you reach for your wallet. How close to expiry is your driver’s licence? In just a few weeks my piece of rather drab, illegible plastic-encased cardboard will self destruct. After the end of August I shall be forbidden to operate a motor car with trailer not exceeding 3500kg in mass. More poignantly perhaps, that date would also see an end to any official sanction for me to throw my leg over the seat of a motor cycle of engine capacity in excess of 125cc. Unable to face these deprivations I joined a long queue on Tuesday.
At the end of a fair wait I found overworked, under-resourced, friendly, patient and astonishingly helpful clerks who tested my eyes (Where is the chequer board sir?) took my finger prints (Relax your thumb please sir) and probed my pocket (R130 please sir). I will have to return in a few weeks to collect the new licence. I expect that I will get a lot of time to stand and think on that visit also.
Much of this week’s thinking was inevitably about the rand, which this afternoon has broken decisively and substantially through the six to the US dollar level and on the week has run out easily the best of a whole raft of other money including the Swissie, the Pound and the Euro.
To the dismay and puzzlement of us bears, the equity market has not responded with a satisfying headlong plunge. Its daily excursions appear to have been aimed at injuring the short term punters, parting them from their cash and their affability with each unexpected reversal. In fact the All Share index looks as if it could close up on the week. Powerful performers include three of the big banks (not Nedcor) which are placed right behind Sasol, the outright leader with a gain in market cap. of more than R3bn since Monday. I love this share.
At the very kind invitation of a client I enjoyed another excursion away from the office this week when I was introduced to the whole process of turning water into orange juice. Aside from the trees, the labour and the technology, the most impressive link in the chain was the squeezing machine. At some incredible rate it selects half a hundred oranges and slings them into individual egg cup shaped holders. A frighteningly medieval looking cap plunges down and in the blink of an eye juice, peel and pith are going their separate ways. The similarity with what the market can do with a portfolio was too awful. At least in the factory the end result is sweet and sticky.
I drove home (barely legally) still thinking.
James Greener
16 July 2004
