This incredibly hot and rainless weather must be to blame. Folk are flocking to conferences in droves where they can doze in the cool of a darkened auditorium while some luminary drones on with his presentation up in front somewhere. And at regular intervals there are refreshment breaks where the caterers are trying to impress. The downside to these gatherings is that they often provide a platform for politicians to flap their jaws and say things even more foolish than usual. For example Deputy Minister Padayachie speaking at a meeting – which itself was a follow up to a colloquium – said that collaboration between telecommunications companies and the state would lower the cost of telecommunications and encourage investment. While this is a dubious proposition, I wonder if had any inkling of the massive investment that was announced just a few days later? Vodafone of the UK has offered to take out Venfin at a huge and tasty premium in order to get its hands on 15% of Vodacom. My guess is that it is the great profitability of Vodacom that attracted the predator’s attention, not the desire to help lower the cost of cellphone calls or provide handsets for the homeless.
Other gatherings of the chattering classes included a derivatives conference in Cape Town; a mayoral business week in Joburg (where complaints about the rather chunky salaries paid to city managers received a curt dismissal); a housing conference attended by the already well housed; a governing council meeting to prepare for the country’s Peer Review (nothing to do with jetties) and some shindig in Germany to which President Mbeki has already jetted off.
More ominous news came from yet another deputy minister who felt that we in the financial sectors are still not doing all that we should do to satisfy FICA. It seems that the bad guys are still managing to launder their money and not pay their taxes. So prepare yourself to be asked to supply verified copies of every document you have ever owned as well a blood test result from the family hamster. On the topic of data, a fine row has broken out about just how many poor people are actually out of work how many jobs are being created. That has coincided with the news that another minister is to lead a scouting party to India to sign up skilled workers. This will not be the first time that the country has raided the sub-continent for help with a sticky problem.
As a scientist I distrust dodgy data but I would have thought that records of sales of both cars and petroleum products would be quite reliable. What then do we make of the fact that 50 697 new cars joined the road in October (most of them on my route to work) but petroleum product sales are pretty well unchanged? Are the proud new car owners just polishing them up in the driveway to impress the neighbours?
Irrefutable data, however, shows that my view on the market was quite wrong. The All Share index has broken above 17000 and into new high territory. The October weakness was a bear trap and I am wounded. So I offer you the forecast from a good friend who is a roaring bull who expects the market to add another 8% or so before we get to wish each other a happy 2006. He’s been really right so far this year.
I do believe that it’s raining right now. Wonderful. It’s traditional that the Centurion ODI gets rained on. And how about them Pumas?
James Greener
4th November 2005
