Before assuming that your iPhone is useless and that we are all going back to the dark ages, I would point out that Saudi Aramco is a cyclical business whereas Apple benefits from secular trends like demand for smartphones and online services. For now, the sun is shining on Saudi Aramco and we are paying for it at the pumps. Long term, I choose to have Apple in my portfolio.

Let’s take a quick look at emerging market currencies before we move on, courtesy of Wichard Cilliers (Head of Market Risk at TreasuryONE):

“The rand started yesterday on the back foot thanks to less-than-impressive data from China. Emerging market currencies came under pressure and the rand briefly broke above the R16.30 level.  We expect the rand to react to moves in the US dollar until the Monetary Policy Committee meeting later on in the week, when we expect some local momentum could come to the fore with the expectation of an interest rate hike on the cards. We expect the SARB to hike by 50bps and anything less than this can place the rand under pressure.”

For more details on Chinese sales data that came out yesterday and disappointed the market, read the TreasuryONE market update.

Yesterday was a spectacularly busy day on the JSE. Ghost Bites will take you a while to read this morning, as there were earnings updates from several interesting companies. If you want to get up to speed on Calgro M3, Balwin, Vodacom, Altron, Raubex, Astral Foods and more, then you’ll find all the critical details at this link.

The next edition of Unlock the Stock is coming up on Thursday, 26th May. This is an event that I co-host with Mark Tobin and the team from Keyter Rech Investor Solutions in which we give retail investors a platform to experience life as an equity analyst. Management teams give a short presentation on their companies and then engage in Q&A directly with attendees. The next session is dedicated to Calgro M3, with the management team in attendance to answer your questions based on the excellent results that were just released. It is free to attend but you do need to register in advance, which you can do at this link. To learn more about these events, check out the previous examples on the YouTube channel.

To get yourself ready for the event, read all about the Calgro M3 results in this feature article.

As we suffer through load shedding and a scenario that looks scarier by the day with Eskom, emigration is no doubt a feature of discussions around the braai once more. Back in July 2020, I wrote about this emotive issue and tried to give a framework to make the decision more objective. It proved to be the most popular article I’ve ever written, shared on multiple WhatsApp groups and community platforms. I have republished it on the new Ghost Mail and I am sharing it with you this morning to help you make an informed decision on this all-important matter.

That’s it for today – good luck out there!