The JSE All Share index has improved by more than 20% since August.
The last 7% of that gain has happened in the first few weeks of this year. So
what’s going on? Firstly note that compared to almost all other equity markets
the Joburg recovery is among the smaller ones. Several markets will be in
double digits for their January performance.
It appears that investors have decided, probably wisely, to ignore the
gloomy data and forecasts and instead to insist that economic growth is about
to reappear or at least if it doesn’t not to let that get in the way of them
buying shares. Certainly, almost all this week’s local company announcements
about sales, revenue and earnings have contained reasonable and in some cases exciting
positive numbers. Turnover is happening and profits are being made, despite
warnings that house prices are 25% too high and global growth will be a mere
3.3% this year.
People have lost interest in the Eurozone’s ceaseless and
ineffectual efforts to get its affairs in order. Debt rescheduling is going to
be an ongoing sport that will possibly apply for Olympic status before long. By
the time it does all blow up – if it ever does – investors will long have
forgotten the analysts crying wolf and urging people to take cover in sensible
assets and currencies. Mind you the fact that gold also has been moving upwards
in these first hectic weeks of 2012 shows that there are a few scaredy-cats who
like the idea of owning something that governments cant easily track down and tax
or confiscate.
This week I made use of SARS’ online payment scheme for the first
time. My one-man campaign to use only the postal services to communicate with
our tax man in an effort to highlight the deteriorating service levels of that
business has collapsed. SARS simply don’t care that letters are not delivered
and would seem to have decided that sufficient tax-payers are compliant,
obedient and computer-savvy for their collection rate to be satisfactory. The
speed and efficiency with which my payment was siphoned off to the state
coffers was terrifying. Imagine what it would be like if a similar efficiency
existed when requesting an ID book or an “unabridged” copy of your mother’s
death certificate (my personal nemesis at the moment). One big story this week
was the huge and frustrating backlog at the outfit that maintains the register
of businesses (CIPRO). Tax payers ought to be compelled to withhold all taxes
due until outstanding requests to the state are fulfilled.
My new “smart phone” boasts a truly amazing suite of mapping and navigation
applications. Sadly, however, the elves in Finland who compiled the map of SA
must have been in touch with a particularly reactionary and confrontational
lackey at the SA government’s Place Names Department. I am now truly a stranger
in my own land as there are huge swathes of country where not one place name is
familiar. My Eastern Cape
homeland is unrecognisable. Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth
and East London have vanished. Even Umtata is now called King
Sabata Dalindyebo. A recent call for tenders in the local newspaper listed a
dozen municipalities not one of which I recognised. Maybe that’s why the Posts
Office has given up delivering mail. They have no idea where to go.
A very puzzling official statistic has been released that suggests
that the volume of food being sold is as much as 5% less than a year ago. That
seems unlikely and is probably yet another indication that the data being
collected and processed by the bureaucrats is getting ever more dodgy. Perhaps
this explains why the bulls are not in the least worried by GDP and similar
allegedly bearish parameters. They are simply wrong.
Reportedly very few companies are clamouring to be associated with
SA cricket and offering to sponsor the various series. The domestic T20
competition is presently without a sponsor despite the great popularity of the
tip and run form of the game. Maybe the sober suited banks don’t wish to be
associated with scantily clad dancers who gyrate on floodlit stages after each boundary
is scored. Or are they just worried that the money seems to vanish into a hole?
James Greener
27th January 2012
