Friday 28 December 2007

BEARING UP – OR IS THAT DOWN?



I think that one of the best medium-term investment decisions that I made this year was not to renew my season tickets to the Wanderers cricket ground. Not only are there distressingly few Proteas’ matches scheduled there but the team itself is tending to become uncomfortable to watch.
On the other hand, my long-standing view that the US markets will lead the way down for the rest of the world is proving much harder to claim as a success. There were several occasions when I was sure it was about to happen in a big way, but only single digit percentage “corrections” appeared in 2007 to tease the bears. I have not been surprised by the nature of the woes that so far have crept across the US financial scene. It never seemed to be a good idea to allow people to borrow money against the collateral of massively overpriced homes. Further, everyone seemed to acknowledge happily that the some of the borrowers had little ability and no desire to repay the loans. But the financial engineers, the propellers on their beanies whirring, laundered and packaged this toxic waste and swiftly sold it on, ultimately to naïve investors living next door to the insolvent borrowers. The whammy was doubled, redoubled and definitely vulnerable. I have been surprised by the lack of any large reaction by the markets to these revelations and now I am being surprised and appalled by the levels of deceit and dishonesty that seemingly pervaded the industry. I claim to have international standards in the skill of cynicism but events in 2007 have left me astonished. Bring me my machine gun.
It is the time of year when forests are sacrificed to the meaningless cause of providing space for analysts to list their predictions for 2008. 2007 will be the fifth consecutive year in which the All Share index has delivered a substantial positive total return. Lengthy and strong bull runs like this are rare, but that in no way suggests or ensures that 2008 will be a down year for the JSE. Valuations are near the top end of their historical ranges but then the infrastructural spending and development that is going on in the country is also at record levels. This might underpin the industrial sector activity and sentiment for a while longer.
Miraculously, the government’s National Credit Act seems to have arrived in the nick of time to reduce the possibility that SA suffered a debt debacle like the ones we see elsewhere. This removes at least one reason why 2008 could be a bad year for the financial sector.
There is no doubt that the world is consuming resources at a rate which is generally unmatched by the coming on-stream of new supplies and so prices of most commodities are rising. However, with many of these products priced in US dollars the rises that have been experienced also owe something to the weakness of that currency. To these two factors, add the movements of the rand and the world-wide corporate activity in this sector and you tend to get the feeling that resource share prices might go up rather than down in the next year.
Please note that no trees were harmed in the production and dissemination of these wild guesses – unless of course you printed it out yourself in which case your carbon footprint has gone up one size.
Whatever happens it will be a fascinating, infuriating and entertaining new year in the markets. For you and your family may it also be a healthy, safe and prosperous one.
James Greener
28th December 2007

Friday 21 December 2007

MERRY CHRISTMAS


I began this comment determined to try and sort out which of the various wild moves and reactions in the markets were due to the Zuma effect, the amazing bouncing dollar, the futures close out event, inflation worries, holiday indifference, or other mysterious yuletide forces. I soon realised that firstly, it would be an impossible task and secondly no one is really that interested. There have been numerous sightings of a bear in a Santa Claus suit, but he hasn’t yet appeared out in the open. It does, however, look as if December will not be the best month of the year for the JSE. Nevertheless, the year’s overall performance will still be much higher than inflation, showing once again, that it is important always to have a reasonable fraction of one’s investable assets at work in the share market.
But this is getting all too serious and businesslike. It is Christmas time, the offices are almost empty, the fridges are full and I hope your family (well, the ones you like anyway) is gathering around you. Please enjoy a very happy, safe and peaceful holiday.
James Greener
21st December 2007


Friday 14 December 2007

BLACKING OUT

This is suddenly starting to look and feel like a proper bear market. The All Share is off almost 2000 points in three days and has tested the November lows. Nothing especially scary has happened at home, so presumably sellers are taking their cue from the amazing developments offshore. US Federal Reserve Governor, Helicopter Ben Bernanke, has cranked up the chopper and is about to begin his promised flight over the country dropping money. He has also arranged to scramble several other members of Central Bank Squadron and even the Swiss have joined the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Canada in showering their nations with cash at bargain prices. These unprecedented activities are a desperate attempt to unblock the credit squeeze that is slowing things up so badly. Investors are obviously not convinced that this will work and believe that company profits will plunge regardless and they would therefore rather not own any shares. It is all looking very messy.
Recall that the trigger for this crisis was the coming home to roost of  US chickens who unsurprisingly decided that they would prefer to spend their meagre earnings on food before servicing their complicated and newly expensive mortgages. Most of us believed that there was no similar problem of “sub-prime” lending happening down here on the southern tip. However, I was very alarmed to read this week that a local bank had securitised R2.4bn worth of “low-cost” housing loans. These were sold with boastful ease to a number of eager fund managers. The mystery is solved when you learn that these bundles of potential ‘toxic waste” come with a colourful certificate to hang in the foyer and a number of Brownie Points that can be added to the buyer’s financial sector charter obligation scorecard. All this state-allocation of resources is going to end in tears, I am sure.
Without commenting further on the quaint global practice of giving female names to machines that bore, it was fun to see the pictures of hard-hatted and reflecting-jacketed worthies peering into a large hole in Rosebank. They were there to bestow the name Imbokodo on Gautrain’s very own boring machine. Whether or not this is a woman’s name I am not sure and neither it seems does anyone else. There was, however, quite a lot about struggle heroines and striking rocks and I am sure that dear Imbokodo has a lot of both ahead of her.
It was also a struggle doing business in South Africa this week as Eskom decided to show off its inability to supply sufficient power by organising “load shedding” events across the country. Even the aluminium smelting plants in Richards Bay were not immune to being cut off and they are among Eskom’s favoured customers. I am still amazed at the official insistence that another big plant like these will definitely soon be announced for the Coega area. In the meantime, however, the chaps down there in the Eastern Cape have hedged themselves by signing up an American aquaculture outfit who they say will open a prawn farm. I doubt that the reported figure of more than 11 000 employees can be correct, but if so, we should soon all be dining on crustaceans rather than mielies.
Power problems at home this week were  exacerbated when cable thieves ripped several lengths of copper cabling from the distribution poles in the street and left us in candlelight. Fortunately, I was able to transfer the beer to a gas camping fridge so it was not a total catastrophe.
The week in the Kruger was very calm and relaxing. There were no once in a lifetime sightings but I did enjoy a pair of ground hornbills. The Jane Goodall chimpanzee refuge near Nelspruit is fantastic.
James Greener
14th December 2007

Thursday 29 November 2007

DEFENDING THE BRAVE MAN


Perhaps the most important market developments this week were the slide in the rand and the surge in inflation. Other items like the third quarter GDP numbers, the abandonment of talks between telecoms players and the money supply figures have had some impact as well. But Governor Mboweni has told us repeatedly that he is particularly focussed on by the first two parameters. It is hard to imagine that he will not have all the ammunition he needs to increase interest rates next month. Even though the pundits point out that despite the earlier interest rate hikes, the GDP growth of 4.7%pa is still excellent, I am sure that money that is more expensive will have an effect on growth in due course.
The forbidden word “Recession” has begun to make its first appearances in US newspapers and I think that portfolios should be getting more defensive. This does not, however, mean buying shares in arms manufacturers despite the example set by our probable next president who allegedly has often used this type of business as a source of income. What I mean here is to search for shares with dependable income streams. Traditionally this means primarily the food, drink and drug industries where presumably their customers do not rely on credit.
Maybe it is also time to have a closer look at the falling yields being experienced by some of the property counters. The distributions from most of these shares are deemed taxable in the hands of the investor, which makes them no different from a three month cash deposit offering say 10% pa interest. And there is no danger of capital values sagging when the tenants decide they no longer can afford the rent.
The headline that [ex-head of the National Intelligence Agency] “Masetlha [was] not guilty of breaking the Intelligence Act.” made me pause for a moment. Do we now have laws about how clever government employees should be? Are state officials obliged to have an IQ above or possibly even below some hurdle rate? All very odd.
I am appalled by the idea that broadcasters have been squabbling about getting exclusive rights to record the proceedings at a political party conference. Is there a new genre of soporific TV on the way? The cooking channels already offer quite enough images of sticky fingers and stuffed turkeys.
If it were not so tragic, the news that it is now impossible to calculate the consumer price index in Zimbabwe would be very funny. With no goods on the shelves, there are no prices, no consumption and so no index. Inflation has become a meaningless concept. Down here south, of the Limpopo, however, it is mainly just the electricity supply that is noticeably erratic. There appear to be plenty of stocks of just about everything else. In particular, second hand cars are well offered. Showrooms and car lots are springing up everywhere. Soon there will be a battle between people looking for space to plant bio fuel crops and people needing to park cars that might one day need that fuel.
Tidemarks is washing up the beach early this week because I am going to the Kruger for a few days. Based on what has been happening to prices recently, not even a polar bear sighting in the park will be as surprising as what I have witnessed sitting here at my desk. Peregrine falcons don’t swoop as fast as the all share index has and spitting cobras don’t strike back as sharply. It will be very relaxing.
James Greener
29th November 2007

Friday 23 November 2007

GLOBAL WARNING


The “pain index” measure is loitering at the year’s second highest levels, which means that the JSE has been experiencing successive days of  wild swings from high to low and back again. In these circumstances, it is impossible to pretend that one has any insight or authority about the market. At least when there’s a trend evident, one can appear to be knowledgeable by forecasting that it will continue. All I can tentatively offer at the moment is that there is quite a lot of unusual stuff going on. Not least of which is that there are nearly a dozen new companies that will list on the JSE before Christmas. If all goes according to plan, the founders of these businesses should be able to shower their nearest and dearest with some pricey presents. However, not all of the recent listings have been unqualified successes and I wonder if investors are not getting just a tad weary of “pump and dump”.
I have mentioned before my fondness for the Prudent Bear website that collects together dozens of links to market news that leans towards satisfying the inner bear that lurks within me. More than two years ago, I noted that I had read about traces of smoke rising over the US housing and mortgage markets. Those wisps have now become a world-wide pall that is pouring out of a fiery inferno that is fiercer than anyone could have imagined. The US yield curve is now very inverted – that is long dated interest rates are considerably lower than short dated ones – and this is almost always an excellent predictor of a slow-down in the economy. In simple terms, folk are going to stop buying and ordering stuff.
Coping with the consequences of this development is now near the top of everyone’s priority list, particularly those people who are running businesses that can and will be affected by the American consumer deserting his post and neglecting his duty. I am therefore surprised that the quaintly named Carbon Disclosure Project managed to get any JSE-listed firms to spend any time at all on their pointless and doubtless irritating survey. Whose money did they get to spend in order to discover (gasp) that Eskom’s coal-fired power stations produce noxious fumes? And just what are we to make of the news that SA’s population is one of the most environmentally ignorant in the world? I know. Get taxpayers to fund more research and projects and schemes and programs and harass and hector people with bad science, poor policy and unworkable legislation.
Consider the fact that the total annual dividend payments by companies on the JSE is about R350bn. Compare this with annual government expenditure of more than R500bn. Certainly, there are tax and other linkages that make this simple comparison rather shaky but it is terrifying to note that private enterprise has less money to distribute to its owners than it takes to run the government.
I am delighted that the price tag for the Cullinan diamond mine is a lovely round R1 billion. When you are talking those kinds of numbers no one wants to bothered with the annoying 99 cents that invariably appears on the till slip. And also it removes the hassle of wondering whether to round up or down to the nearest 5c. I do just wonder, however, if it is the right price.
More international hot air this weekend. This time in Durban, where the 2010 Soccer World Cup preliminary draw takes place. (I wonder how many trademark infringements there are in that sentence?). My English friends and readers will not want to be reminded of this sport right now. Just where/who is Croatia?
Mind where you place your carbon footprints please.
James Greener
23rd November 2007 (my final sub-sixty prime number birthday)

Friday 16 November 2007

EVERYTHING COMES IN CYCLES

That R99 million fine that has been imposed on a bakery because it admitted that it had been chatting to its competitors about the price of a loaf, is a lot of money. Why the government is going to pocket the loot is not explained, although I do understand that doling it out fairly amongst the folk who have bought bread these last few years is a tough task. Would I, for example get a greater refund on my exorbitantly priced Ciabatta this weekend than the chap who is about to lunch on a Bunny Chow? But once again, I am puzzled that the state feels so strongly about ensuring free markets in some things while it simultaneously insists that it alone can decide on the correct price of money itself. Governor Mboweni has been very clear this week that he believes that the stuff is still too cheap and he will be pressurising the committee of great and good next month to raise interest rates some more. The sound of the pips squeaking is clearly not yet loud enough for him.
At last, the share markets appear to be noticing the cries of pain coming from the credit markets in the US and other large economies. Even two of our own local banks have been affected by these euphemistically named sub-prime loans. No-sign (of the money coming back) loans is a truer reflection of the situation. Things are already much worse than any forecast that I have read. The only people who are not feeling the pinch, are the departing bank chief executives whose main problem is wheeling the truckloads of farewell-present cash out of the door. It’s an odd system.
Inevitably, the picture is not unambiguous, however. The gold price has plunged below $800 per ounce which is another way of saying that the greenback has strengthened. With so many experts calling for its collapse, I suppose a recovery was probable. It has this week gained against every major currency except the Yen  and this last anomaly may have something to do with these mysterious “carry trades” [Not the same thing as the aforementioned CEO’s wheelbarrows].
Reporting season on the JSE is in full swing and with the notable exception of a dismal set of numbers from the fixed line phone monopoly, most companies are doing fine. Understandably, earnings growth is sometimes lower than a year ago but no calamities have yet come to light in the industrial and financial sectors. As we have discussed many times, the miners have their own special set of problems.
I maintain my attitude that a well-balanced portfolio of solid dividend-paying shares does not need to be radically adjusted even at this time. If one is exceptionally worried and bearish then certainly postpone putting any extra cash into the market and maybe allow the income account to accumulate for a while. I am fairly sure that cheaper prices are on the way.
I do hope that the weather in Cape Town is fine this weekend. When the mother city puts on her party frock, she is one of the most attractive places in the world to visit. It will certainly be warm since there are right now plane-loads of G20 conference delegates arriving at the foot of the mountain and once they get going, the hot air will be flowing in torrents. May they nevertheless be delighted and beguiled by the place. Please watch your wallet at all times and especially when chatting to estate agents in Clifton.
On Sunday, thousands of cyclists will once again encounter that strange Highveld summer weather phenomenon. No matter in which direction you pedal, the wind is always in your teeth.
James Greener
16th November 2007

Friday 9 November 2007

MINING HOUSES MAKE LIKE MISSILES


A gentle glow of satisfaction was starting to pervade the bears on Wednesday evening as they watched the money channels on TV. Wall Street was looking very weak and it did appear as if the odd chicken was even coming home to roost. The JSE sagged in sympathy on Thursday morning and buyers were scarce. Then a few minutes before lunchtime, the news broke that BHP Billiton, the largest company on the JSE ranked by market capitalisation, had been spotted trying to persuade Rio Tinto that a merger of the two would be a match made in heaven.
What happened immediately was that the Billiton share price shot up – fast and far. This was followed closely by the Anglo share price. When these two behemoths sprint like that, the earth moves for all investors. The index climbed nearly 1000 points in seconds. Thereafter things got even more messy and complicated and mere words could not describe events. You had to be there, in front of the screens and in earshot of the screams. The talking head industry has seized on this topic with delight. One can now get a complete range of opinions on whether or not a merger would work. Political opinions, jaw-flapping and intervention are confidently expected next. Acres of weekend news print will be assigned to the story. Trees will fall.
The current position is that Anglo is once again the largest share on the JSE, the All Share index less than 400 points off the all time high, and the bears are back in the woods. Potential mega deals like this are of course the reason that investment banks exist and sometimes the deals become one of those rare “black swan” events that can demolish carefully crafted investment strategies. I do not entirely understand the various extreme price reactions to the news. What is certain, however, is that knowledgeable people in the commodities business believe that the demand for their products is not over and that good growth lies ahead.
We are staring to move into company reporting season again. Some of the recently listed ones with construction and building-related business have announced stellar results. In some cases the wonderful earnings have somewhat justified the terrifying valuations that the shares had been wearing. Nevertheless, these sectors still have very few obvious bargains. Ominously, however, it appears to be getting tougher to sell consumer durables to people who have to borrow money. A motor dealer this week complained that cars are not flying out of the showroom as fast as they used to. Credit-dependant furniture retailers are also slowing down quickly. The new money lending legislation is obviously having one of its intended effects of controlling individual indebtedness. The price of fuel is also making the idea of car ownership and indeed most travel unappealing. And that’s before you consider the implications of a plane discarding an engine during take off.
The papers today tell a rather sad little story about the response of the national broadcaster to complaints that the ball-by-ball cricket test commentary was absent from the usual radio channel. The response was “What is ball-by-ball commentary?” I suppose for some people, the appeal of cricket is as low as the appeal to me of televised proceedings of the debating chambers of the provincial and national legislatures. In my view, this is a complete waste of broadcasting bandwidth and at the very least should be tagged as unsuitable viewing for children and anyone who can read without moving their lips.

James Greener
9th November 2007

Friday 2 November 2007

THANK YOU JAKE WHITE. HAVE A NICE LIFE


The US obediently followed my forecast and this week cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. However, the debt dragon is already far too big to be worried by such puny actions. His fiery breath is licking into every corner of the US and illuminating more and more cowering damsels in severe distress. It almost seems as if no one who borrowed money in America in the last few years had any intention of paying it back. The banks and intermediaries disguised this fact from the lenders (and it seems, from even their own bosses) by slicing and dicing and packaging and wrapping the toxic messes in ever more mysterious ways. But now the blood is not just dripping from the corner of the smelly and battered suitcase. It is pouring out at such a rate that just maybe the share market can no longer ignore it. There have been some bad down days in the Dow and buyers worldwide are now pondering their purchases a bit more carefully than before.
The dual-listed rand hedge shares on the JSE have been the best performers of the week as the rand has given up much of the gains that followed the news of the big Chinese purchase of Standard Bank. The quarterly reports from the gold mining companies and the outfits that claim one day that they might become one, have been appearing and it is sad to see the near collapse of this as a viable South African industry. Gold shares are now only for the very brave, nimble and risk-hungry. Investors need no longer give this sector any time at all. Someone should tell the SABC that they could make more time for cabinet ministers to preen themselves by dropping any mention of the gold index from their news programs
The chaps down at the Financial Services Board have ensured themselves a merry Christmas with a couple of multi-million rand fines slapped upon some hapless traders who manipulated share prices in March 2003. Based on this speed of justice, if anyone who helped give the JSE prices that big push in the final minutes of trading on Halloween is worried about the cops, they have plenty of time. The Soccer World Cup will be over and they will be able to travel to Pretoria for their hearing on the Gautrain.
The Department of Home Affairs has decided that the Post Office is the source of all its lamentable inefficiency and failures. In a somewhat garbled tirade it appears that that the department uses the Post Office for tasks like moving documents from the “front” office” to the “back office” or other such nonsense. Admittedly, it is rare to see any government employee shuffling from one place to another burdened with anything more than a single sheet of paper, but to use the mail to get something to the next room seems extreme. I have long been in an industry for which the SAPO is an unavoidable partner and I think that generally the service is pretty good. For example, if I overlook the fact that they were sold out of standard postage stamps in those convenient dispenser rolls, they did manage to deliver to most of my clients their October statements within 48 hours of being posted. In a probably deluded attempt to ensure that the mail keeps working, I refuse to use anything other than the post for my correspondence with the tax man. Sadly, so far his assessments and demands have never gone astray.
I am grateful to the person who pointed out that England rewarded their World Cup-winning coach with a knighthood. In South Africa we have allowed politicians to use Jake White to send a message about government power to the nation. It is a pitiful, shameful, embarrassing and alarming development. Those of us who nurture a hope that there really is something special that can grow in our rainbow nation, have been reminded that we are naïve. Politics before people. Oh dear.
James Greener
2nd November 2007

Friday 26 October 2007

CHINA SYNDROME


When will it dawn upon these evil and nasty politicians that the power that they think they have is really quite illusionary? They can strut and posture and proclaim and pontificate about changing names, selecting teams, permitting work and other similar annoying matters, but in the end 5.5bn US dollars beats all. A man from China clutching wads of actual real cash gets everyone’s attention and BEE loses out to CEE. Two of the speakers at the Standard Bank press conference that announced the 20% acquisition by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China of the country’s largest bank are old boys of my own school. I wonder if Cantonese will not soon be compulsory in those dusty Eastern Cape classrooms?
You can be sure that this latest move by the smart and rich Chinese to gain a further foothold in Africa has nothing to do with them wanting to redress any legacies of colonialism or ensuring the furtherance of human rights. It’s the minerals they are after and I doubt they will be keen supporters of the idea that a mine should be closed after each fatal accident until blame has been apportioned. As I understand their approach, workers have work not rights. Our lives here on the dark continent are going to change.
It has been customary to describe large sums of money as being in the category of telephone numbers. However, not even the recent addition of the area code digits to our numbers has made them large enough to describe the losses that are being reported by the financial market giants. Despite many of them claiming that either a) they had only minimal exposure to the calamity of the sub-prime loans market or b) the debacle was of small importance and well-contained, all has not been well! Wealth has been wasted by the wagon load and lenders are wondering how many other euphemisms for “the money has gone” are lying in wait.
It is widely presumed that next week, Governor Bernanke is going to try and alleviate the woes in the US that are arising from people being unable to pay their debts. To do this he will probably drop interest rates. Unfortunately for him this will probably also cause the dollar to weaken further and also discourage foreign investors from putting their savings into American instruments. The phrase “viscous spiral” springs to mind.
A few weeks ago, I described the rand as a runt. Naturally that runt has grown up into the pick of the litter and has sunk its teeth into my leg. It is at two-year highs against many major currencies and the so-called rand-hedge shares are under pressure. I have no idea why economists are listed together with jewellery designers, electricians and maths teachers as some of the 53 categories of scarce-skills who can fast track the work permit system. You could hire pretty well anyone to make a forecast that will turn out wrong.
Even though the JSE thinks that tonight marks the end of October and the official portfolio valuations will be printed over the weekend, Halloween is still three trading days away. This leaves plenty of time for the All Share index to slide below the 30 000 level and turn the month’s performance into a negative number. There still seems to be no news either good or bad enough to cause the buyers to run for cover. Everyone wants stock and obligingly the list of new companies (coming mostly to the Alt-X board) is not growing shorter. Some of these issues are ludicrously small and terrifyingly oversubscribed and some have failed to surge on listing. I think this is alarming news, but then what do I know?
I do know that the ‘bokke are deserved world champions and that the Lions will lift the Curry Cup this weekend.
James Greener
26th October 2007

Friday 19 October 2007

THE ‘BOKKE BY FIFTEEN


The financial pages have stirred themselves into a froth about today being the 20th anniversary of “Black Monday”. One of the many delights of this place where I sit at a desk (work would be rather too presumptuous a term) is that many of my colleagues were still at school when it happened. Even I had not been long in the markets when it struck and I thought that these sort of things were normal. Actually, that “crash” took less than a year to recover its losses and looking back, one can see that there have been at least three years since then with an All Share performance that was worse than 1987. In 1998, we suffered a 10% decline. Understand that it would take a fall of about 25% from current levels to make 2007 into a negative return year. That’s not impossible but unlikely. Perhaps us bears will be satisfied only in 2008?
A probably insignificant yet poignant milestone occurred in the market when BHP Billiton moved ahead of Anglo American in market cap. This is the first occasion in my time of being in the JSE that the top spot is not occupied by a share from the Anglo stable. And then there’s the fact that single-stock futures dominate turnover on the exchange. Is this the sign that it is time for us fogies to move on? Not a bit of it. I have plenty of opinions and forecasts left in me yet! And still half of them will be correct.
The Gauteng provincial government never fails to disappoint and enrage me with novel ways in which it will spend my money. Today they request proposals for “A Body Shop for Human Resources Services”. What on earth is this? A gym, sauna and massage facility for staff stressed out with writing rules on how people should employ other people? Or perhaps a panel-beating business to cope with abused official vehicles? The appeal today from one Mr Gert Joubert to achieve a huge reduction in government by simply abolishing VAT and firing state employees until costs equal income, gets my complete support. His suggestion comes at the end of a week when the state has announced its intention to get even more involved in all sorts of ventures including mining exotic minerals. Just get the water and the electricity to flow reliably first please. Oh yes, and stop those people who rob the rest of us of our lives, possessions and freedom.
I am intrigued and disgusted by the obstinacy and stupidity of the people who apparently have the authority to decide how and when we South Africans can connect to the rest of the wired world. Reportedly, an official conference complete with receptions, lunches and gala dinners was held this week to decide upon a suitable name for the proposed fibre optic cable that might reach SA sometime in the future.
The difficulties of obtaining a Shengen visa to get to Paris this weekend notwithstanding; it seems that a veritable stream of politicians eager to bask in reflected glory of the ‘bokke has been traipsing past the Eiffel Tower these past few days. A photo op with Brian Habana, must today rank as one of the better pictures to pop into the manifesto leaflet. Which reminds me of the declaration a few years ago by at least one current cabinet minister of his support for the All Blacks. How’s it feel these days sir?
I was once fortunate enough to watch the St Patrick’s Day parade down Fifth Avenue in New York. However, Johannesburg today is sporting more green than I ever saw during that event. The atmosphere is wonderful and we confidently expect the boys to hoist the trophy tomorrow. To all of you who might accuse me of lukewarm support might I remind you that my blood is truly greener than any of yours.
Go ‘bokke.
James Greener
19th October 2007

Friday 12 October 2007

WHO REMEMBERED KRUGER DAY?


Naturally, the All Share index claimed another record high this week. However, a few hours later, Governor Mboweni, glowing prodigiously in the spotlights, spoilt the party with a half percentage point rise in interest rates. Without dwelling on my ever deepening confusion about why an increase in the price of money is supposed to slow the rate of  increase in the price of everything else, we note that the rand strengthened and share prices have mostly slipped a bit. Something was almost bound to come along and put a brake on the incredible JSE price surge of the last six weeks. And it might as well have been the Governor and his committee of monetary policy wonks. Obligingly, not long after the TV screens reverted to the soaps, the largest listed credit-dependant furniture retailer published a trading statement to warn that they were not earning as much as they had hoped. Realise that the store’s experience of customer reluctance was from a period probably unaffected by even the rate hike before this one and you might agree with me that this Thursday’s action was unnecessary. Certain areas of the economy are already slowing down all on their own.
Talking of slowing down, did you see the enormous map of Gauteng published in the press today? In intricate detail, it shows the plans the bureaucrats have for alleviating the dreadful and wasteful congestion on the region’s roads. Before my eyes gave up, the main thing I could see were seemingly dozens of toll plazas every couple of kilometres along the main arterial routes. That should speed things up nicely. Actually, it would certainly ensure that the heavy construction boom continued for much longer.
I am delighted to see that some real engineers have told the suits at Eskom not to mislead their customers by claiming that wet coal is responsible for a portion of the electrical power shortages we are suffering. This lame excuse was obviously thought up by someone who’s sole understanding of how thermal power stations work is obtained from occasional visits to the staff canteens at these places. A poorly planned maintenance program that has taken far too many generating sets out of commission simultaneously is obviously the problem.
By contrast, the efficiency of the privately operated cell phone networks was amply demonstrated this week. An innocent observation that an unusually heavy rain cloud was approaching Joburg, mutated into an SMS text avalanche that convinced many folk that every known form of extreme weather was about to hit the town.  People fled for home causing even more traffic chaos than usual and confused dogs, cats and family members were herded into cupboards and under beds to await the hurricane /tornado /tsunami /earthquake. In the end, it rained quite a bit and an irritating cold front hung around for too long. Predictably, already a government official has decided that it is the state’s task to ensure that nervous citizens will not get spooked in this way again. I await his plan with interest. Perhaps it will have application in these markets as well?
South Africans are already very nervous, having slowly returned to normality after several days of wildly celebrating the departure of the Aussie and  Kiwi teams from the World Cup.  Normal breathing will return only late on Sunday night after the ‘bokke have ensured that they will be the southern hemisphere nation to go into the final. This is very tense stuff. I need to leave now and prepare for the real storms that are about to burst on the TV set. Two bottle stores were out of Castle last Saturday! Biltong futures are through the roof.
James Greener
12th October 2007

Friday 5 October 2007

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY?


Regrettably, this week at least two friends were caught up in criminal incidents. One was brutally murdered and the second was stabbed several times with a screwdriver. Undoubtedly, these families of educated, skilled and law-abiding tax-payers will soon be looking to see where else in the world they will be more appreciated and protected. Becoming a victim of violent crime is no longer just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and falling prey to one of a small number of criminals prevalent in any society. In this country now, each and every one of us is under almost continuous scrutiny and assessment of our potential for being a useful and valuable target. Whatever the degree of violence, the risk for the perpetrators is almost nil and the rewards can be substantial. It is the perfect recipe for growth and that is certainly happening at a terrifying rate.
Equally disturbing is the reaction of those of us who have escaped the latest bout of local banditry. We merely put our heads down, give thanks that it wasn’t one of our immediate family and continue living in the abnormal society that South Africa seems to make its own. Those who are in power are therefore also able to pretend that nothing is wrong. This gives them the time they need to indulge in the interminable and complicated witch-hunts within their ranks. They consider that this pointless and wasteful sort of activity is government. To many outsiders it feels as if the process is designed to protect and promote criminally incompetent officials at the expense of those who might actually be capable of doing their job of being a servant to the tax-paying public.
One clear example of how we are all managing to hide from the collapse of a civil society is the way we keep on buying this stock market up to ever higher levels. Judging from the behaviour of the rand it looks as if foreign investors are also happy to send their money to Johannesburg. Human nature is certainly dominated by the emotions of greed and fear. As long as the assailant’s bullet or knife misses a vital organ, we are off to the races, shopping, consuming and investing. Surely, there must be a huge fire smouldering out there somewhere but no one has yet spotted the smoke. At present, the flows of wealth are still camouflaging everything else.
A must-have investment guide came to light this week in the form of a document  that was given to the country’s largest fund manager by his client – the country’s largest pension fund. Reportedly, it “details a tight mandate” to ensure that the fund manager “performs at the maximum”. The board of trustees of the pension fund have decided to incorporate environmental, social and corporate governance issues into all of its decision-making. No mention of return or performance, but I suppose that the aforementioned document covers those matters. It would be churlish not to note that the JSE’s Socially Responsible index has delivered a return of 25% so far this year compared to the All Share’s more modest 23%. Maybe they are onto something.
My mood of despondency has not been lifted by today’s cricket test victory in Pakistan but perhaps on Sunday after the All Blacks have been sent home and the ‘bokke have trounced Fiji, things will look brighter. Maybe after the World Cup, Jake White will come home and run the country.
Please keep vigilant and safe. It is a jungle out there.
James Greener
5th October 2007

Friday 28 September 2007

BEARS CITED FOR UNDERPERFORMANCE


So that’s the end of the month and the third quarter. Was that storm last night a cover-up for Santa’s practice laps around the circuit? The All Share index is skulking around its all-time high and a total return in September of nearly 5% looks likely. That nasty little 15% “correction” that scared us in August has been completely erased along with the credibility of us bears who thought we had spied the beginning of the end.
I was interested to read that the official view on inflation is that it will be tamed only next year. As this statement is so clearly an optimistic wild guess (sorry – considered carefully researched opinion) I wondered why it was offered. Perhaps they too have noticed the sharp upward spiral of commodity prices – especially oil and wheat – and also conclude that bad inflation news is inevitable. Now the approved (but in my opinion, incorrect and ineffective) official weapon in this fight is the cost of money. I think we can expect it to be increased at the next meeting of the MPC in two weeks time. The present strength of the rand may also be anticipating such a move.
The end of September sees the first step in the changes to the way that the tax man seizes a portion of the money that companies pay out as dividends. The rate for the secondary tax on companies (STC) will fall from 12.5% to 10%. In principal that should be good news. Shareholders ought in future to get the loot that in the past was flowing to the National Treasury. Maybe this is one reason for the particularly frisky nature of the bull on the JSE of late.
However, the variable-dividend preference share market would appear to be reacting in the opposite way to this change in the tax. Prices of those shares have softened noticeably in the past few weeks. I am puzzled by this move. This class of pref shares undertakes to pay a specific amount of dividend (related to the prime overdraft rate) per share per year to the shareholders and issuers have had to adjust their prospectus conditions to cater for this tax change. If that amount remains unchanged despite the tax rate decrease, why should the prices now fall? The average implied dividend yield of the shares in this category is now well above 10%pa. Maybe it’s the expected repo rate rise they are anticipating and nothing to do with tax.
I never realised that it was necessary to apply for a job as a member of a provincial sports team. I thought that if you were any good at the game someone would tap you on the shoulder and invite you to pop in for a try-out or something. So I was surprised to see the ad in the paper placed by Western Province Rugby (Pty) Ltd who are apparently in need of a tight-head prop. Perks of the post include a blue and white hooped jersey with your name and the number 3 tastefully embroidered on the back. Perhaps the most surprising part was that the ad felt it necessary to state that academic qualifications are not essential but great natural strength would be useful. My CV will stay in the file.
We can’t be certain that the ‘bokke wont again take the long way round to beat the USA in Montpellier on Sunday evening. It is not easy to watch this sub-prime sort of stuff. And then I suppose we will wake up on Wednesday morning to learn that one of the chaps has been cited for an alleged and unseen misdemeanour just minutes before the cut-off time. Unsettling. Someone out there fears the ‘bokke almost as much as the two McLaren drivers distrust each other.

James Greener
28th September 2007

Friday 21 September 2007

IS A PERMANENT BULL MARKET OUR HERITAGE?

Even though the All Share index has not yet set a record high this week, its impudent younger brother, the Top 40 index, has done so. Once again, bears are sporting egg- splattered faces. The main reason offered for week’s bullishness is that Governor Bernanke chose to drop US interest rates and surprised everyone with the aggression and style of the move.
This is the first time since taking over the job that Helicopter Ben has tugged on the big lever in the corner of his office at the Federal Reserve. He is the man who is on record as saying that dropping dollar bills from a helicopter is also a feasible central bank strategy for addressing monetary problems. He must have been sorely tempted to invite his predecessor Sir Alan for a short chopper flight this week. The aging alleged guru has been seizing the limelight with unhelpful commentary and a book of criticism about his former bosses. Tacky.
Another unappealing idea has turned out to be the system of quasi-government so-called Education and Training Authorities (SETA). Dozens of these things exist and each one feeds on levies raised from real businesses within different industries and sectors. Naturally, the quality of staff running these leech-like entities is highly variable and all too often stories of incompetence, corruption and larceny reach the news. One example appeared recently when the dullards that run the Transport SETA announced that they had written off their R252m investment in the disgraceful Fidentia Asset Management outfit that collapsed. Fair enough, anyone can make a bad call, but firstly to slip into the announcement that a further R2m from an internal fraud was also gone and secondly to claim that the Authority would still be able to meet all its commitments despite this shortfall is breathtaking arrogance. If this is true, why did they need so much money in the first place?
The notable feature of the futures close-out yesterday was that the JSE systems pretty much handled the massive volumes without any serious calamities. No particular price trend emerged during the event and I guess that traders were more focussed on domestic practicalities of getting the deals done than watching the overseas screens for news to panic or exult about. That came later in the day when the Proteas slid ungracefully from the Twenty 20 world cup event. I suggest that we get our money’s worth from these well-paid young men by assigning them to stadium security duties for the rest of the tournament. They should not now be permitted to withdraw to their golf-estates and watch on TV as the Aussies lift the darn trophy. With now only one sports team left in a world cup tournament, SA Breweries are probably correct in their forecast that the country will not run short of beer in the next few weeks.
More bad news for taxpayers appeared this morning in the form of a R70 000 advertising bill to allow the Department of Health to scold us for not appreciating them or their minister enough. Just do the job lads and you’ll get all the appreciation you deserve. And I hope that the Home Affairs department has noted that the Chinese are reportedly solving their problem of jobless rural citizens moving to the cities by sending them to Africa. That’s OK. Just don’t send the planes back empty please. In the markets we call it the switch trade.
The ‘bokke really should be able to make our Heritage Day long weekend and national braai day reasonably happy. Can anyone actually find Tonga on a map?
James Greener
21st September 2007

Friday 14 September 2007

SHOW ME MY MONEY

There’s a photograph whizzing around the internet today which shows an orderly but lengthy queue. The line begins inside the London City branch of one of Britain’s largest mortgage lending companies and winds down the street. This morning the company was reported to have been turned away empty-handed from the Bank of England when it asked if it could borrow a few quid. I doubt that the people in that and other queues reportedly forming elsewhere outside other branches of the company are rallying round to offer bundles of cash to the beleaguered institution. I would rather think they are trying to do the opposite and leave the premises with folding stuff that they will pop under the mattress for the time being. These are amazing scenes. That allegedly “small and contained” sub-prime debacle in the US is spreading its tentacles.
It is now quickly dawning on people who actually have money that considerable numbers of  their fellow citizens who have been borrowing it are really unable to meet the interest payments. More seriously, they are also not in any position to repay the principal amount either. This is because in the worst cases they have consumed it or because the assets they “invested in” have plunged in value. The intermediaries in this whole sorry mess are now suspected of being rather too cavalier in their promises to the lenders and rather sloppy in their evaluation of the borrowers. The fact that many of  those intermediaries have been seen to be standing up to their navels in fees and commissions during these last few years of alleged plenty is not improving tempers. The fear and greed pointer is sliding towards the F word.
In the US, the problems for the savers and investors is compounded by the fact that the dollars themselves that they are extricating from the ruins are falling in value against oil, gold and other currencies. The demand for “safe” US treasury paper has been so large that interest rates have been pushed down and that too is putting pressure on income. It is a mess.
I do believe that I am not being naive and complacent when I claim that domestically in SA there is no crisis of comparable size or severity lurking. Nevertheless, the banking shares on the JSE are being smashed and are leading the whole market away from the local peak it attained this week. The September futures “close-out” event takes place on Thursday afternoon and may be seen as a reason to ratchet up anxiety levels a notch or two. These are exceptionally interesting times.
Only the largest three gold mining companies of the dozen or so that are listed on the JSE seem actually to be making any money. This week I saw news of another one that hopes to get permission to reopen the ancient workings that used to define the southern edge of Johannesburg city. Mining is not for pessimists or sissies.  But I suppose this is another of those opportunities to “Unleash Your Investment Potential’ – whatever that might mean.
As well as trying to cope with unfolding events in the markets there are at last two international sporting tournaments clamouring for my attention. Now let’s get this straight. If England beat Australia this afternoon then the Aussies go home early. Come on England! But tonight we need to beat England ourselves so we don’t meet Australia in the semis. Whew! The marketing geniuses down at SA Breweries have replaced the old six-pack with the eight-pack. Not a moment too soon.
Have a wonderful safe sporting weekend and may your teams win (but not against us).
James Greener
14th September 2007

Friday 7 September 2007

SUMMER IS A’COMING IN. LOUD BLOW THE REF’S WHISTLE


I was not terribly reassured by the news that the banks’ own industry association had paid a quarterly subscription to the wrong organisation. Apparently it took four months before the R360 000 error was discovered. In the meantime, the rightful beneficiary had not noticed the shortfall and the lucky recipient had spent the unexpected loot. Requests from The Banking Association for the cash to be returned have been ignored.  It comes as no surprise that the free-spending outfit is run by politicians, and it is gloriously ironic that it is an organisation which, amongst other things, lobbies against high banking charges. I guess that charges will soon go up again chaps. There’s a loss to cover.
But the theme of carelessness with other people’s money is very strong and widespread at the moment. One fund after another all over the world has been telling their customers that they really should not call up and ask for their money back. It is only when the fund needs to sell their “investments’ in order to pay out those whining customers that everyone learns the awful truth that many of the bits of paper they hold are worth very very much less than they were being valued at. Oh dear.
That “pain index” measure that I have told you about before has recently been dropping back from the record highs it reached at the end of last month. However, this afternoon the USA released some data that has caused panic to break out and the bulls to flee. That number has the unromantic name of “non-farm payrolls” and today’s statistic suggests that Americans are losing their jobs. Now an unemployed American is undoubtedly less able to go shopping or pay off the mortgage and this is bad news for a world that has become dependant on the American population doing both those things with enthusiasm. Markets have swooned, the dollar has tanked and the gold price has broken above both $700 and R5000 per ounce. The pain index is definitely on the way up again. Traders on the wrong side of this move will be thronging the bars tonight seeking comfort in the bottle.
Investors now have a full weekend to absorb and digest this news and I would guess that the market weakness will continue on Monday when they do make that call they have been told not to make! Even conservative good quality portfolios here in SA will fall in value as speculators race for the exits. However, there is still no evidence that good companies are cutting or skipping dividends and so cash flows should remain healthy and can be accumulated for the excellent buying opportunities that I am sure will turn up, but  probably next year only.
Why did it take so long to confirm that the otherwise unprepossessing one and a half kilogram piece of stone was in fact a diamond? As I recall, the country’s first diamond find was confirmed when some clever chap in Grahamstown scratched his name on a windowpane with the gem. Nowadays one probably doesn’t have to travel to Lower Albany to find a suitable window, but the principle remains the same. Now we can look forward to so-called celebrities fighting over who is going to be able to afford to hang this particular bauble around whose neck.
At last, tonight the rugby world cup gets underway. It is a long haul from here and hopefully we will have interest in it right up to and beyond the final whistle. The warm weather has at last returned and the fridge is stocked. What more can we hope for? That the ‘bokke survive the Samoan encounter undamaged?
James Greener
7th September 2007

Friday 31 August 2007

THINGS ARE GETTING OLD AND SMELLY


I have had lots of fun catching up with all the market activity that took place while I was away. Prices have been all over the place haven’t they? As expected, the stories from the US of A tell of rapidly growing piles of rotting investments although amazingly, so far, not too much has been unearthed in their equities markets. I am, certain, however, that the soft and nasty stuff is there and will stink all the worse for being left so long in the dark. Nothing especially bad in any market here in SA has yet been reported and hopefully we are in better shape. I do, however, think that we are being rather naïve about our currency.
For several reasons, most of us focus on how many rands we need to buy a US dollar and it has been around the level of just over 7 for so long now that it sort of feels “right”. Against other currencies, however, there is no cause for such misplaced and benign complacency. The rand is a runt.
Although ridiculed by more sophisticated analysts than I, the behaviour of the price of  a well-known metal called gold provides an interesting and frightening measure of what has happened to our money. These days you need more rands than ever before to buy yourself some of this gold. In fact something like R153 000 per kg (and you thought biltong was expensive!) Smart folk will ask why you would want to and my simple reply is that 18 months ago, a kilo of gold cost just R100 000, and it was half that price when we were welcoming the new millennium. Now before you race out and fill your boots with the metal, I should point out that the stock market has performed even better than that in this time. That of course is the same as saying that the JSE has provided a positive return after inflation. This note is just an illustration of the falling worth of our currency.
Talking of stuff that has gone down the drain, what are we to make of the Gauteng Government’s call for tenders to provide a Status Quo Analysis of the Municipal Sewerage Treatment Plants (sic) Capacity? Don’t we have anyone working for those municipalities who can do that as part of their job anyway? Can’t they be trusted to tell us the depth of ordure we are in?
One of the cell phone network operators reported this week and the fact that they have 13.5m subscribers in SA alone is not entirely good news. You may have noticed that the bureaucrats got their way and phone FICA is upon us. In what we are assured is a move to bust crime, every cell phone owner will have to provide the usual nonsense of certified copies of ID, address (so the crooks will know where to go to get which model phone) and doubtless other guff. Chalk up a plus for photocopier and paper and storage suppliers, but a huge minus for the time and cost of this stupidity. Can’t you just see the mess when you take your papers to one shop only to be warned months later by some call centre in India that they have been lost and your phone will be blocked! Who believes this will have any effect on decreasing crime? Not me. In fact I predict an increase in the assault of cell phone shop staff.
Also in need of  some firm clips around the ear are the buffoons who scheduled the Twenty-20 Cricket World Cup at the same time as the Rugby event. Circus Cricket hadn’t even been invented four years ago so could it have been all that hard to have glanced at a calendar and picked something different from 2007?
The trip to see the Namaqua flowers was a great success although it was a bit alarming to look around at one fellow tourists and realise that this trip is a sort of rite of passage for greying empty-nesters!
James Greener
31st August 2007

Wednesday 15 August 2007

DEAD WOOD, BOUNCING MARKETS & INTERESTING TIMES


I did warn that my leave commitments in August would probably mean a lengthy break in the production of Tidemarks. However, there is so much happening now that I could not resist popping in to the office to jot down a few thoughts.
Naturally, the premier story is about the markets where eye-popping price moves have seized everyone’s attention and some people’s wallets. It seems that my long-standing suspicions that things were going bad in the US housing and debt markets are turning out to be correct. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I am really enjoying the stories and reports of astonishment, anguish, apoplexy, and arrogance that are increasingly coming to light. Unfortunately, there are innocent victims at the end of the food chain who are now finding out that they had been paying too much attention and far too many fees to investment “experts” who knew no more than anyone else what the future held in store. In an alarming number of examples, it seems that investors were being encouraged to buy instruments of such dazzling complexity that no one knew what they were or especially what they were worth. Almost nothing is the answer to the last question in most cases. And my greatest glee is reserved for those asinine comments from glib spokesman who assure us that the $20bn loss that they have (so far) admitted to have taken in this or that department will have no impact at all on their overall business. If this is so, why were they involved in that area of activity in the first place?  
These announcements display the same level of contempt for their audience that our own state-owned airline did with the news that they would in future not serve any alcohol to passengers on domestic flights before noon. This move, the statement smoothly assured us, “was aimed at improving customer service and comfort”. I beg your pardon? Just how does the denial of a comforting service improve that service? That outfit is doomed.
Why is it that innovative investment instruments are launched in the market at the very moment when most investors are thinking about running away? In the next few weeks, two interesting new Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) will be listed. One will track the SA Listed Property Index (J253) and the other the Dividend Plus (J259) index. One can spend an unprofitable few hours researching the construction and behaviour of these indices in order to decide whether they suit your portfolio, but the reality is that they will pretty much deliver what they promise. Readers know that I rather like these things, with the proviso that there are occasions when one would choose not to increase exposure to the markets in any way at all. There is an opportunity to climb aboard these funds at their launch and so avoid dealing costs. This is always a tempting offer but should not prevent you first thinking if now is when you want to buy them. For me, the Dividend Plus is the more intriguing of the two, but its price will still fall if, as I think, the present market corrections are still far from over.
Before leaving on my trip to view the living and vibrant spring flowers on the West coast I invite you to consider the following challenge thrown down by a political group yesterday. It concerns the invitation to identify “untouchable deadwood” within the cabinet and “to provide evidence to any dereliction of duty by any deceased or current serving minister.” Might I be so bold as to suggest that any deceased minister is no longer doing a good job and is undoubtedly deadwood? Don’t get me started on the living ones.
James Greener
15th August 2007

Friday 3 August 2007

FLOWERY BEAR

You will not be surprised to learn that the “pain index’ that I calculate for JSE market from time to time is soaring way up towards record highs. This indicator tries to quantify the losses that could be suffered by a short term trader who managed to get the intra-day and day to day market moves utterly wrong. In the past ten trading days there have been seven with a range in the All Share index of more than about 500 points. The first day of August bared its teeth with a massive 986 point range. These are huge and savage moves, especially when superimposed on the absolute decline of almost 2500 points that has hurt even conservative investors. Fortunately, only the insanely unlucky punters will have suffered all of the pain but there have still been enough injuries for the stretcher parties to have been needed here and there. We have yet to see any local reports like those emanating from the US where funds have told their clients not to bother asking for their money back as there isn’t any left!
I think that neither these bouts of massive volatility nor the sharp declines are over. This is the reason for my reluctance to suggest that anyone commit large amounts of new money to the market at this time. Just be patient and wait for the better values that will certainly reappear in due course. Existing portfolios that have reasonably balanced holdings in well-managed dividend-paying companies can sit out this storm. Inevitably investors will see valuations fall for a while but probably not below where they were even two years ago. In my view there is little merit is trying to get too clever and sell off large chunks of the portfolio with the intention of buying it back when the bear has done his worst. Firstly, I note that perfect timing is probably impossible and secondly, capital gains tax and dealing costs are eager supporters of frequent trading strategies! If you are convinced that the market is going to plunge a long way and would like to benefit from that move, then there are derivative products on the JSE that allow you to place that bet. And betting is what it amounts to.
While watching a program about China’s preparations for next year’s Olympic Games I began to wonder why had not yet seen any speculation about will happen in that country when it is over. Down here in SA, we have already expended acres of newsprint and gales of hot air on fretting about post-2010. Might the global slowdown begin when the flame goes out in Beijing next year?
Local slowdown, however, is not evident as the reporting season hots up and double-digit earnings growth rates are being trumpeted by all sectors. Construction company growth rates are even threatening to get into treble figures!
I do not expect to be able to send you Tidemarks for the next three weeks. Firstly, in unison with most of the nation, I have decided that the Women’s Day public holiday next Thursday would be discriminatory unless accompanied by a Man’s Day on Friday. I will be using that long weekend to carry out an experiment into the travelling qualities of Castle lager by transporting several cases to the Umfolozi. This, however, will not be the end of my self-indulgence. Immediately thereafter, I shall be off to Namaqualand. With luck, the spring flowers will be in bloom and shares will be far from my mind. Please keep good care of the markets during my absence and ensure that there will be something for me to write about when I return.
Keep safe.
James Greener
3rd August 2007