I know, I know. That was quite the emotive email subject line. For those who have already read my piece on emigration, you've possibly guessed what's coming. For those who haven't, you're in for a treat.

We are all incredibly busy and I'm conscious of how much time it takes to stay on top of the market and get on with your daily lives. Occasionally, the JSE dishes up a relatively quiet day of news. This gives me an opportunity to share some thinking with you that isn't necessarily related to the market.

Load shedding has tested our limits over the past couple of weeks. As we've discovered, Level 6 is where the fun truly stops. I'm guessing that the topic of emigration has come up for many families; a difficult and emotional discussion that very few people actually want to have. The other discussion point has likely been inverter batteries, with ever yone becoming an expert on this topic. I'm convinced that the same people who built sanitiser stations for restaurants are now installing inverters instead.

My most-read article of all time is about emigration. In this piece, I suggest an objective way to make the decision. If you haven't read it before, then I highly recommend that you do. I know for a fact that it has helped many people in these discussions.

Don't worry - I haven't forgotten about the JSE. It was a quiet day of news but certainly not of trade, with a horrible 3% drop on the JSE All Share Index.The Resource 10 Index was smashed by 6.6%, with major losses across the mining counters. In stark contrast, Naspers added ove r 4.5%, taking the return over the past 30 days to over 60%!

Markets are nothing if not unpredictable and exciting.

We saw news from Nampak that is important, with the company being given more breathing room by lenders. Cell C (owned by Blue Label Telecoms) is also making some progress, with the recapitalisation plan achieving an important milestone. Aveng is yet another company that has caught a break, with a legal fight being settled in Aveng's favour to the tune of R282 million! The only earnings update came from tin miner Alphamin, which disclosed a nasty drop in quarter-on-quarter earnings as the tin price fell - commodity volatility is vicious! For these updates and more, read the latest Ghost Bites whi ch is in a new format this week that readers are really enjoying.

Looking to the currency markets, the dollar is on an absolute rampage as recession fears rose. Those fears drove the sharp drop in commodity prices. As the team at TreasuryONE pointed out to me, the dollar and equity indices have been negatively correlated since the Ukraine invasion. In other words, a stronger dollar means weaker equities. The dollar index has broken through multi-year highs and is trading at its highest level since December 2002 - that is a LONG time ago! Even a 50bps hike by the Reserve Bank of Australia couldn't help the Aussies, with their currency weakening against the mighty dollar.

Gold continues to frustrate me, trading around 2% lower as the markets moved to the dollar as a safe haven. Platinum lost over 2% and copper fell 4%, back to levels last seen in 2020. The really big move was in Brent Crude, which lost over 7% for the day to trade at $105. That might help us at the pumps in future, even though the rand lost 1.5% on the day.

To help us understand what is going on, TreasuryONE will be hosting an exclusive webinar for Ghost Mail readers next week Thursday, 14th July at 9am. Attendance is free for Recession, depression and the insane petrol price: what does this mean for the rand? with Andre Cilliers, Currency Strategist from TreasuryONE. You just need to register at this link.

Risk management is key in this market. In the latest episode of Magic Markets, we focused on this concept with Petri Redelinghuys and three of the traders in the Herenya Capital Advisors community. They shared real-world insights that are invaluable to new and experienced traders alike. Be sure to listen to the show here.

Remember that no matter how tough things get out there, knowledge is power. You're in the right place.

Good luck out there today!