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Good morning Voornaam,

Articles:

Ghost Bites: Clicks is growing and expanding quickly, with shareholders loving the journey. BHP and Anglo American could be the monster deal of the year. Look out for Coronation and Standard Bank updates as well. Read Ghost Bites, with thanks to Fedgroup.
DealMakers: Get the latest summaries of local corporate finance, local M&A and African M&A from the team. There's also a piece on competition law developments in Africa.
Dominique Olivier: Perspectives on the quartz crisis in Switzerland in the 1970s and how industries are disrupted. Read it here>>>
Satrix: Year-to-date performance across asset classes, highlighting themes like AI and gold. Read it here>>>
Fedgroup: Does incorporating alternatives into your portfolio make sense? Get their views in this entertaining article>>>

Podcasts:

Brand new Ghost Wrap: the news and my views on Sirius Real Estate, Afrimat, Oceana and PSG Financial Services, delivered in five minutes and with thanks to Mazars. Listen to it here>>>

Magic Markets: Strategic trends and recent performance at Nike and Foot Locker, brought to you by Future Forex. Listen to it here>>>
Investec Structured Products: The Global Accelerator offers 100% capital protection in dollars at maturity after five years, while giving exposure to global equity indices. Japie Lubbe joined me in this podcast>>>
Investec podcast The Current: Interested in investment opportunities stemming from South Africa's energy transition? Listen to Iman Rappetti in conversation with Barry Shamley, Zane Bezuidenhout, Boipelo Rabothata and Campbell Perry in Episode 4 of The Current at this link>>>

Unlock the Stock: Bell Equipment recording: The recent event featured Bell Equipment and an array of interesting questions from attendees. Watch it here>>>

Local company news:

Ghost Bites is brought to you by Fedgroup.

Clicks operates in such a sweet spot in the retail sector. Health and beauty categories are high margin items with long shelf lives. Grocery stores have historically bled market share in these categories to the likes of Clicks, with that trend looking set to continue based on the rapid store growth that Clicks is busy with. As frustratingly high as their valuation multiple is, it's hard to fault their strategic and operational delivery at the moment.

Of course, the really big news yesterday was BHP making a play for Anglo American. It says a lot about South African infrastructure that BHP's prerequisite for the deal is that Anglo unbundles Anglo American Platinum and Kumba Iron Ore to its shareholders. BHP doesn't sound too convinced about De Beers, either. Anglo's copper assets are the real jewel in the battered crown.

I also covered Coronation's recent performance (for which they made me really go digging), along with Standard Bank's quarterly update.

Get the details in Ghost Bites at this link>>>

LISTEN: The Global Accelerator (with Japie Lubbe of Investec)

The Global Accelerator offers 100% capital protection in dollars at maturity after five years, while giving exposure to global equity indices. Japie Lubbe of Investec Structured Products joined me on this podcast to talk through the product design and the way it can be used in a portfolio. Listen to this podcast to find out more.

Listen to the Ghost Stories podcast here (35 minutes long)

READ: Satrix April Newsletter | An Absolutely Incredible Time We Live In

In the April newsletter, Satrix looks at year-to-date performance across asset classes. The team also highlights the gold and Artificial Intelligence themes in the markets.

Give yourself a refresher on the first quarter of 2024 in the markets

LISTEN: Cashing in on clean

There are so many investment opportunities stemming from South Africa’s energy transition. In episode 4 of Investec’s The Current, discover how you can get some skin in the clean energy game. Hosted by Iman Rappetti, listen to the discussion here>>>

Learn about clean energy investment opportunities (32 minutes)

LISTEN: Ghost Wrap
(Sirius Real Estate | Afrimat | Oceana | PSG Financial Services)

You need just five minutes to get the news and my views on these four local companies, brought to you by Mazars. Listen to the podcast here>>>

International business news:

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: in Satya Nadella we trust. Microsoft is my ride-or-die. It's the one I would have if I was only having one. The company absolutely dominates the enterprise space, with the latest results showing a beat vs. expectations for revenue and earnings per share.

Cloud computing is still growing like crazy, with AI as the recent boost there. Across the business, there's solid growth. Microsoft was up 4% in after-hours trading in the US. Over five years, Microsoft has significantly more than tripled your money - in dollars!

In other big tech news, Alphabet also beat on earnings and revenue despite market bearishness around their business model. Revenue has accelerated and the company announced its first dividend alongside a vast share buyback. Even the Google Cloud business is starting to get somewhere, having been the ugly duckling next to swans like YouTube.

Alphabet is up by nearly 150% over five years. Although Microsoft has strongly outperformed the search giant, that's still a pretty special return.

Ready to understand more about risks and opportunities in global stocks? Subscribe to Magic Markets Premium for just R99/month. You'll get a subscribers-only weekly report and podcast on global stocks, covering strategy, financials and technical trading indicators.

READ: Tick tick boom - perspectives on the quartz crisis
(by Dominique Olivier)

Dominique Olivier's latest column takes you through the quartz crisis in the 1970s that led to the creation of Swatch. Which, by the way, stands for Second Watch and not Swiss Watch.

Learn about how the quartz crisis hurt the Swiss watchmaking industry

Macroeconomic Update

The dollar ran out of steam the past two days, with GDP figures for Q1 of 2024 printing well below expectations yesterday. The focus now shifts towards PCE data in the US later today, seen as the Fed's preferred inflation measure. The next FOMC meeting looms large in the coming week.

Gold had another volatile day, with a traded range of roughly $30. Although it is some way off the recent all-time high, it remains solidly up this year.

Key indicators: USD/ZAR R19.06; US 10-year 4.71%; Gold $2,330; Platinum ZAR R17,343; Brent Crude $87.44

This macroeconomic update is based on TreasuryONE's morning update.