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Good morning Voornaam,

The end of 2023 is nigh. At this point in time, most people's eyes are as glazed over as the cherries planned for Christmas lunch. We are nearly there, evidenced by SENS not having enough stories to justify Ghost Bites today.

Instead, I'll just hit with you a few highlights in the section at the bottom of the mailer reserved for the latest JSE news.

There are three new podcasts coming this week to make sure your roadtrip / jogging playlist is well looked after. You'll find two of them in here today.

The first is with Siyabulela Nomoyi of Satrix, a familiar voice to Ghost Stories listeners. He joined me to tackle the difficult topic of saving and investing over December - January, along with a wide range of topics linked to ETFs. We also talked about some positioning going into 2024. Find it here>>>

The second is a podcast that I did for bizval, one of the startups that I'm so proud to be a co-founder of. Eitan Stern of Legalese joined me to talk about the critical importance of protecting intellectual property for entrepreneurs. This is a great listen for anyone interested in real-world business. Find it here>>>

And of course, you shouldn't miss the final article for the year from the excellent Dominique Olivier, who just loves telling business stories. The Kardashians could be one of the most polarising families in the world, yet there's no denying that their business journey is incredible. I was amazed by just how many businesses and products they've launched! Curious? Find it here>>>

Have a great day!

LATEST: What to do with those festive savings with Siyabulela Nomoyi of Satrix

Saving and investing over December - January isn't easy. To keep you inspired, Siya joined me to cover a wide range of ETF topics - along with some tips of how to keep those goals going over this period of endless spending!

Listen to the Ghost Stories podcast here (38 minutes long)

BRAND NEW: Money, Grede and Business - a Kardashian Success Story
(by Dominique Olivier)

In her latest column, Dominique Olivier tries to keep up with the Kardashians and their business journey. You'll need your running shoes for that - they've launched a LOT of things! But what can we learn from them?

Read about the Kardashian business journey here

LATEST: Ghost Wrap podcast

(Tharisa | enX - Nedbank | Thungela | Italtile | Grindrod)

The latest Ghost Wrap podcast goes into more detail than usual, as these stories are too important to miss. Ghost Wrap is brought to you by Mazars.

Listen to the Ghost Wrap podcast here (6 minutes long)

LATEST: Magic Markets podcast

In Episode 155 of Magic Markets, we looked at pure-play athleisure business Lululemon and compared it to various South African apparel retailers, with particular attention paid to why local retailers are far more diversified than a group like Lululemon and what this means for investors. This show is brought to you by international data and automation specialists B2IT.

Listen to Magic Markets Episode 155 here (22 minutes long)

DAILY: TreasuryONE Market Update

For a brief moment, the rand tested R18.40 yesterday afternoon, but that move higher was quickly thwarted as the rand moved back towards R18.30 where it had traded for most of the day.

The debacle in the Red Sea is the major focus right now, driving oil prices higher. Tensions need to be calmed to stop that rally, with the US leading the way on that. Brent Crude is above $80 a barrel.

Diamonds might still be forever

If you've followed my writing on mined vs. lab-grown diamonds, you'll know that I see both as having a place in the market. They just need to figure out their respective price points and we need to see what that means for the economics of both business models.

Anglo American announced rough diamond sales for De Beers for the tenth sales cycle of 2023. They are, well, rough. Sales were just $130 million, vastly down on $417 million in the comparable cycle last year. De Beers deliberately offered lower levels of supply in order to match demand and give some support to pricing. They make the comment that supply and demand is regaining its balance, with the hope that polished diamond prices have stabilised.

Notably, they expect improvements in rough diamond trading conditions to be gradual. This has had a significant impact on the Anglo American outlook and shareholders will certainly hope to see an uptick in prices.

There wasn't much else to report yesterday, except perhaps Moody's downgrading Telkom's National Scale Rating. All ratings have a stable outlook. The downgrade is to bring Telkom in line with other South African companies that have similar metrics.

Finally, Schroder Real Estate Investment Trust has completed the early refinancing of a loan and has reduced the principal outstanding. The fund's loan-to-value ratio reduces from 33% to 32% as a result. The blended all-in interest rate for the fund increases by 10 basis points to 3.0%, which shows you that most property refinancing at the moment is at a higher rate than before.

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