Large with Lafarge

Good Morning Voornaam,

You'll need to be quick - the bizval webinar on preparing a business for sale is scheduled for 12pm today. With expert guests from the UK on the panel, there's so much to learn here for founders. Don't miss it! Register here>>>

You also still have time to register for Unlock the Stock tomorrow at 12pm, which sees Attacq and Tharisa as our featured companies. Brought to you by A2X, this is a fantastic way to learn about both companies and to practice your equity analyst skills in the Q&A. Register here>>>

Learn more about the markets

Here are a few ways to increase your market knowledge:

And if you want to learn more about yourself rather than just the markets, Satrix brings you an excellent article on discovering your investment personality. Understanding your own behavioural tilt is critical to success in investing. I highly recommend reading this piece>>>

Afrimat digs deeper into the cement industry

If you read your Ghost Bites earlier this week or listened to the latest Ghost Wrap podcast, you would know that PPC and Sephaku are having a tough time in their local cement businesses. PPC is at least still making a sizable profit, whereas Sephaku's local business is now only at breakeven.

Now that Afrimat has announced the Lafarge deal, we can see a similar trend there. Lafarge's EBITDA fell from R311 million in the prior year to R38 million, so it's not hard to see why the foreign owners wanted to get out of SA. A frimat is there to pick up the pieces, with a deal that is very much a case of buying when there's blood on the streets. The market liked the deal, giving the Afrimat share price a boost.

Other big stories yesterday included a very important trading update from City Lodge, with the company expecting to be profitable this financial year. Standard Bank is reporting record growth, fueled by inflation and high interest rates but with all the warnings you would expect around impairments. There's also news from MTN, Nedbank and Transaction Capital, with a management shake-up at Mobalyz (the renamed SA Taxi).

You can get everything with one click by reading Ghost Bites>>>

Unusual moves in commodities

It was a bit of a strange day for commodities yesterday. TreasuryONE notes that gold and oil both fell, yet copper remained relatively unchanged and the dollar showed minimum upward movement. It's difficult to pinpoint why that may have been the case, particularly when European stocks also rose throughout the session.

The rand also weakened, particularly in the afternoon session. A test of R18.50 is potentially on the horizon once again, particularly if profit-taking continues.

Have a great Wednesday!

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