Well that was certainly not the sort of
market correction to scare anyone. A mere hiccup, now almost half recovered. We
bears are very disappointed. 2014 is supposed to be the year when we can go
shopping for great values like we saw half a dozen years ago. Patience is a
virtue they say.
Unfortunately this month’s release of employment
data was another rather good example of just how difficult it is to obtain reliable
data about almost any aspect of the nation’s performance. It is frankly really
hard to believe that by the end of last year there were 653 000 more people
with jobs that a year earlier. This represents a 4.5% increase in the number of
people employed in a period when the same department that publishes these statistics,
claims that the working age population rose by just 1.8%. One would have
thought that this sort of increase in the number of people earning an income should
have helped the retailers report reasonable results for the Christmas season.
In fact their numbers published so far are rather disappointing.
The delisting of Palabora, the country’s
sole producer of refined copper is yet another milestone in the government’s
route towards a complete reconstruction of the mining industry. Just where that
route is leading has not been publicly stated but with so many communists in
control, complete nationalisation of the nation’s mineral wealth seems a fair
assumption. Palamin is not a big company – no more than R6bn market
capitalisation -- but its departure further restricts the choice investors have
when looking to our markets for exposure to natural resources. There are now
only about a dozen listed mining companies on the JSE with a market
capitalisation above USD1bn (approx R11bn).
Almost all are either gold or platinum producers. This is a sad
situation given how many world class mineral deposits there are within our
borders.
The rand has been battling solidly to try
and recover some dignity; which is something that definitely was lacking at the
much heralded fancy dress bash and banquet that we taxpayers funded so
generously in Cape Town
this week. The State of the Nation Address is merely an annual version of
something the president does all year which is to omit the hard parts and boast
about the good ones. For some reason an invitation to go to parliament to
witness this exercise in mendacity is THE hot ticket of the summer and an
excuse to display very dubious dress sense. Particularly annoying was the faux
airline captain’s uniform donned by the minister who has piloted the national
airline into the ground.
As well as the inevitable flow of money
in unusual (and totally opaque) directions, the other unanswered question is
why South Africa
needs a “spy satellite”. Who are we spying on?
What are we discovering that a quick peer at Google Earth won’t tell us?
Is it yet another piece of the Nkandla security cordon? Ironically no one seems
to know where the satellite itself is.
But once they do, how about using it to search the country for
youngsters who can bowl or kick or hit a ball accurately? Heavens knows we are
in dire need of lots of those.
We shall never know if it would have been
better if Captain Graham Smith had elected to bat first at Centurion this week.
Maybe this Aussie strategy of strong middle order batting and terrifying left
arm pace (with bad moustache) will prevail anyway. At this stage it looks as if
the first test will be all over before the first local Super 15 matches kick
off. I really don’t like this overlap of major sports. Life is hard enough
wondering why if you fall on your bottom on the ice twice you can still win a
medal. In the meantime there are some folk participating in the Duzi canoe
marathon standing up! As if paddling sitting down isn’t hard enough.
James Greener
Valentine’s Day 2014
