Of course, on a day when I travelled to Joburg with an early start and a late finish, the listed companies on the JSE decided to pile on the pressure with an almost endless list of updates. Writing Ghost Bites last night until the small hours very nearly turned me into a ghost, so I do hope that you read it today!

Here are some nuggets to entice you:

• Afrimat raised more capital than expected, as investors rushed to get a chunk of the action at a discounted price.
• ArcelorMittal grew its HEPS by 21.5% and more importantly managed to reduce net debt by 61%, as the steel group braces itself for economic pressures.
• Pepkor is seeing enormous growth in its Brazilian acquisition Grupo Avenida, with sales up a spectacular 51.6% in the quarter ended June. Brazil should contribute 2% to group revenue this year and 4% next year, which tells you that strong growth i s expected to continue.
• The Foschini Group always gives us great insight into the maturity of eCommerce in different markets, with online sales as a percent of total sales as follows: 3.2% in TFG Africa, 6.5% in TFG Australia and 38.4% in TFG London.
• Karooooo had a much better quarter, with subscription revenue up 17% and earnings per share up 42%. Competitor MiX Telematics saw its net income margin slashed from 12.4% to 6.9% and reported a quarter of negative free cash flow as it invested in vehicle tracking devices.

I can only lead you to Ghost Bites. I can't force you to read it. Considering that some of the best fund managers in the market now read it every day, I suggest that you do the same. GET YOUR GHOST BITES>>>

Today is Friday, which means the team from DealMakers is back with their weekly summaries of the corporate activity on the JSE and in Africa. Flick through the updates and make sure you haven't missed anything. READ DEALMAKERS>>>

Other stuff you should make time for:

• Learn about crypto arbitrage with the great team from Future Forex, with a clever system that helps you cycle through your foreign allowance to earn an annualised return of between 70% and 80% on initial capital.
• Value your business using the bizval online tool before 31st July and use the coupon 46664 at checkout to ensure that 50% of the fee gets donated to the Gugulethu Chess College.
• Read about why defensive stocks aren't always as defensive as you think, with Walmart as an excellent example.

Looking to the currency market with TreasuryONE, we see that the rand reversed some of its losses over recent months and headed towards the R16.50 level. Recessionary fears have been heightened by more dovish commentary by the Fed than expected and a poor second quarter advance GDP print (-0.9% vs. 0.5% e xpected). This should hurt emerging markets currencies, but the market actually sees this as a signal that the Fed may not hike as aggressively as expected, which is positive for the rand.

Believe it or not, even gold rallied based on recessionary fears! Personally, I would love to see the yellow stuff finally do something useful.

It is now very late in Johannesburg and this ghost has had a long day. I hope you thoroughly enjoy the content - thanks for reading Ghost Mail this week!