DON’T COME FLY WITH ME

The two global indicators which are steadily climbing without much pause or interference are commodity price indices and US long bond yields. Indices of course conceal slight underperformers if there are bigger out-performers in the same index. This is a particular problem on the JSE where a very skewed mix in size, quality and number of listed shares in various of the sectoral, and even overall indices, is causing mismatches between individual portfolio performances and the “market” performance.  The US rate thing is very interesting as it may at last be reflecting more actual market sentiment and less “official” manipulation through infamous programs such as “quantitative easing” .

President Cyril seems to have led a rather low-key but very important purge of the dangerously incompetent provincial leadership of North West province. This provides a glimmer of hope that he is planning similar coups in all the other areas in which his predecessor poisoned the wells and laid booby-traps. Is there any state agency, department or enterprise which does its job quietly, honestly and efficiently?

This week we were told that there are 9 481 million people unemployed. Who at the Union Buildings who even reads these statistics? We do know, however, that the fog of socialist dogma enables everyone to deny any link between their outdated and disproven theories and these utterly dreadful numbers. Hopefully the tiny spark of excitement in noting that the number of “discouraged job seekers” declined from 15474 to 15320 and the awful phrase “income-shy” are products of poor journalism and not official pronouncements.

The national airline SAA is irredeemably broken with yet more news of even more money that will be needed just to keep the lights on for a few more months. SAA’s plaintive whine that already their current budgeted income and expenditure numbers are awry because key assumptions and initiatives failed to materialise is actually quite funny.

The upturn in the frequency and ferocity of attacks on those armoured vans which are used to carry and deliver cash is extremely alarming. It is obvious and indeed proven that many of the perpetrators are members of either the police or army and are proficient in the use of tactics and munitions. That makes it very difficult to stop and so one wonders whether urgent attention is being given to move South Africa towards a cashless society. The facts about which nations have made how much progress with such plans are very interesting and even Kenya is already some way down the road. But banning, for example, any cash transaction above a really quite low level, like a few thousand, as is done in many European countries, will be deeply unpopular among the very many tax evaders that walk our streets. But it would reduce incidents such as took place this week in the forecourt of a Durban hospital where a gent with “enough cash to buy a car” was shot at and robbed. Reducing cash usage will also require our banks to get far less greedy about the fees charged for operating simple accounts and debit cards. On consideration, these conditions are unlikely to be met in a hurry and so it does seem that cash-in-transit heists will continue to be a growth industry for a while yet. Pity.

Apparently, most TVs will tomorrow be tuned into watching broadcasts from London sporting events rather than Super 15 which, if the press is to be believed, is a competition in poor health. Some of the blame for this is being put on poor refereeing, an ill which could be quickly solved by putting the chap from the end of the bar in a mauve shirt and handing him a whistle. Actually, just about anyone with a beer glass, who has never read the Rugby Laws and once played lock in the school U15 B team think they do a better job than the man (and even sometimes a woman) out there on the field. What’s on in London? A wedding (royal) and a soccer match (final).

James Greener

Friday 18^th May 2018 (International Museum Day)

SMOKING HOT PENALTIES

Perhaps the simplest yet most crucial national statistic needed for any analysis is how many people there are in the country. In its last annual report published almost a year ago, Stats SA declared that there were 56 521 900 souls living in South Africa.  The 22-page document goes on to slice and dice this number in all manner of ways, the most important of which is by age group. Naturally, this being South Africa, the government in probable defiance of the Constitution, still confidently slots each of us into one of four coyly named “population” groups. And it is even bold enough to split the nation into merely two genders – a task that these days is a crocodile-infested swamp where common sense goes to die. These numbers are undoubtedly all hopelessly incorrect, and the most recent evidence for this is the education funding crisis where far more kids have pitched up for school than Stats SA told us were out there. All “per capita” analyses in the education business are dreadfully compromised suggesting that the government’s boast that education is their priority expenditure item needs to be used cautiously. This is not going to be an easy one to fix and will require both hard work by government and cooperation from citizens.  

The good news is that very shortly it will be possible to fly from Durban to London without having to stop over in Doha, Dubai, Constantinople or even Kempton Park. British Airways will now operate flights from our very own King Shaka direct to Heathrow several times a week. A good scattering of folk who probably hardly ever pay for their own tickets and usually get to sit near the pointy end of the aircraft were pictured smiling expectantly at model planes painted up in the appropriate livery. The irony is that the event chosen for the announcement was a showcase for South African tourism and that SAA was nowhere to be seen. This was particularly painful for SA taxpayers who not only funded the jamboree but are also currently paying R5bn to keep our egregiously over staffed and badly run national airline operating for a few more months.

South Africa is a pretty violent place but at least we don’t have to worry about   molten rock oozing out of large gashes in the landscape and destroying stuff, like the folk in Hawaii are coping with now. A video on the internet shows a car being consumed by lava almost as quickly as a protestor can torch a truck.

The new boss man at SARS seems like a hardworking decent chap, but tax collectors are definitely affected by their line of work. To regard taxpayers as “clients” who deserve to be better serviced is really to sugar-coat the fact that we are victims trying not to be fleeced! He did reveal that the SARS unit dedicated to high net worth individuals serves (there he goes again!)  just 450 taxpayers. Out of 56 million? Wow! This seems to be a remarkably low number judged against the number of lavish homes and exotic cars around us, but it obviously depends on one’s definition of “high”. Curious.

It’s very hard to understand just what the state wants to do about tobacco. Undoubtedly it is very bad for one’s health but banning it outright would terminate a very useful revenue stream for National Treasury and would further stimulate the enormous criminal smuggling enterprises that allegedly feather many nests. Including some in high places. Yet the latest proposed set of anti-smoking legislation is medieval in the severity of the penalties. Property owners who fail to put up No Smoking signs (when did that ever help?) could go to jail for years. A similar sentence awaits someone smoking alone in their own car. Surely, we have far more important problems, like having enough teachers for all those kids, or curbing drunk driving, than hunting for someone enjoying a (still) legal substance in the wrong garden?

The excitement in Durban is unending. Next week the boys from Barcelona (well some of them, anyway) come to play an exhibition soccer match in our iconic (but costly) stadium. Hopefully, unlike the last time there was a game there, the fans will not also do some kicking (of security staff) when the match is ended.

James Greener

Friday 11^th May 2018

MIKADO MOMENT

Fans of the Savoy operas will immediately have noted the similarity between Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner and Donald, President of the USA. Both have “little lists of those who won’t be missed”. The more recent of these two list-makers has identified the nations which most often vote in opposition to the USA at the United Nations and which in consequence face the probability of America chopping off aid and benefits. Alarmingly South Africa is on this list and the punishment could be far worse and longer lasting than anything Ko-Ko had in mind. It’s provng foolish to poke the bear and not believe that he will carry out his threats.

Whether it’s this policy that is finding support is of course impossible to tell, but solid demand for US dollars is the big market story at present with our own runt about 8% weaker against the greenback in just two months. However, those inflows to the dollar don’t seem to be directed towards buying US shares or bonds since neither of those prices are moving much. Conversely though, with many JSE listed companies sensitive to a weaker currency, the local indices are quite perky with resources leading the pack.

However, those who like to do old fashioned value analysis still feel that there are very thin pickings on the JSE. Earnings remain very low compared to prices and therefore this is probably not a good time to buy. But the difficulty in using this metric and indeed most other techniques, is that increasingly it appears naïve to rely too much on published and even audited financial statements to obtain such presumably useful parameters. This epidemic of unreliability is almost certainly related to the rise in regulatory and compliance activity. This will seem counter intuitive to outsiders but now that every call is recorded, every meeting reported, and busybodies are frantically trying to ensure that the playing field is level -- made harder because they have no idea what game is being played on that field -- the market’s early warning systems have been stifled. The incentives and opportunities to dig and ferret and chat and probe and pass on a rumour have been removed and largely prohibited and so it is only when a mess gets very large and smelly do the authorised mechanisms get activated. It’s ironic that despite the massive growth in compliance activities, clients and customers still get hurt. And what’s worse is that they are of course indirectly paying for this unwanted monitoring of their “safety”. A couple of scrupulous and honest front office personnel with long-standing client relationships are worth a thousand over-qualified yet inexperienced and clueless gumshoes listening to recordings, sifting through records and composing ever longer disclaimers.

If there are still any believers in hard tangible assets out there they probably already know that at around sixteen and a half thousand rand each, Krugerrands are at their cheapest in several years. The gap between this price and the JSE price of New Gold, the exchange-traded fund that tracks the rand price of gold is also at a low point. Time to switch from the ETF to the coin?

While there is the usual feast of Super Rugby matches to help us each reach the national average daily TV watching time of 7 hours and 2 minutes (yes really!)  the one that probably deserves our attention is the Cheetah’s play-off against the Llanelli Scarlets at 7:35 pm on Saturday (right after the Sharks match) in their Pro 14 campaign. The press commentary is mostly rather gloomy about their chances, but this is a side which often does surprise. And there’s an excuse to pop down to the bottle store and get in a few Guinness since they are the tournament sponsor and also deserve support.

James Greener

International Star Wars Day -- May the Fourth be with You