Welcome to a new week. We are deep in the year now and at that point where your heart is on leave and your body probably isn't. Push through and give yourself some interesting stuff to read to stay motivated, like Dominique Olivier's excellent new piece on what's actually going on out there on the internet. TL;DR: it involves bots. Lots of bots.

It also involves lots of hackers and threats, which is exactly why Satrix is reminding you to stay vigilant this festive season. Fraud is rife and there are more bad actors on the internet than in a low budget movie. Satrix gives important safety tips in this article.

In company news, the story of the day on Friday was undoubtedly Barloworld and the combination of a disappointing trading statement and a potential take-private by the CEO and a key investor. Of course, this creates an immediate conflict of interest. Barloworld knows this and has put safeguards in place (whatever they might be), but it's still a juicy story.

In other deal news, we saw Clientèle come out with a deal structure for the Emerald Life deal that looks more like a private equity or property trade than anything else. They are financing practically the entire deal with preference shares, leaving very little room for error here.

There's yet more M&A news, with Novus triggering a mandatory offer to Mustek shareholders. There are cash, cash + share and share-only options available. Of course, there's also the ability to simply say no and take a view on what Novus' long-term plans might be with Mustek.

Amongst all the deal news, we also saw Trematon come out with a trading statement. 

For details on these stories and the other Nibbles, read Ghost Bites here>>>

Keen to get insights into some Trump-inspired trade ideas and potential impacts of his expected policies? Dimitri Zabelin joined us on Magic Markets for this discussion, bringing his global lens and expertise to the show. Find it here>>>

Our next Unlock the Stock session is with TWK, a group operating across various agriculture verticals. You can register to attend on 21 November for free here.

Have a great day!

Alibaba managed to grind out a revenue increase of 5% year-on-year, below analyst expectations but at least in the green against a backdrop of generally disappointing performances by consumer-facing businesses in China. If you look deeper, the best growth rates were found in the overseas businesses, with the main Chinese offerings up just 1%. The hope is that recently announced stimulus measures will start to make a difference there.

Unsurprisingly, the cloud business is growing faster than eCommerce, although not by much - it registered growth of 7%. The Chinese government has caused much chaos in the sector in the past couple of years and this has had a major negative impact on Alibaba's growth vs. US-based peers that are growing their cloud businesses at a vastly higher rate.

Our latest research in Magic Markets Premium is on Amazon. This is a perfect example of a platform business finally coming into its own, with the eCommerce business contributing positively as well. Does this make it a compelling choice vs. some of the Magnificent 7 peers? Subscribers find out this week.

Equity benchmarks the Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite are firmer in trade today, after Chinese regulators urged listed companies to support share prices.

US and European Index futures are trading flat to marginally firmer this morning in what currently looks like a lacklustre rebound from oversold conditions in the near term.

The JSE All-Share Index is in turn expected to open up flat this morning as well.

The dollar and US Treasury Yields remain firm, although little changed overnight. The rand is however slightly firmer, perhaps finding some support from metal prices which are mostly higher on the day.

Precious and base metals have gained on the prospect of improved Chinese demand following more stimulus suggestions from regulators.

Oil prices have gained on escalating geopolitical tensions.

There is no high impact data scheduled for today.

Key Indicators: USD/ZAR R18.13/$ | US 10yr 4.43% | Gold $2,585/oz | Platinum $950/oz | Brent Crude $71.00

The macroeconomic update is based on the morning call update by IG Markets