It's Monday, which means that Chris Gilmour is here to share his views with you on JSE-listed retailers. In the past couple of weeks, he gave you an overview of the non-discretionary retailers (grocery and pharmacy), as well as part 1 of his work on discretionary retailers in which he focused on Woolworths. Today, Chris shares part 2 with you, in which he gives a blunt appraisal of the recent performance (or lack thereof) at Truworths. There are great insights in here related to the management team and the risky approach that Truworths has taken with the Primark brand. I really enjoyed learning about the legal precedent around trademarks in South Africa and how this impacts the Truworths strategy.

In this week's edition of Ghost Global, you can get up to speed on a variety of companies. Ghost Grad Jordan Theron decided to focus on Ford, Taiwan Semiconductor Company, Occidental Petroleum, Costco and of course Twitter, which Elon Musk has caused havoc around. Keeping an ey e on global company news is critical, as the local market is just a tiny taste of your worldwide opportunity set. I would also like to remind you that offshore stocks are available on EasyEquities, which is part of the appeal of that platform.

In Ghost Bites, your daily update on JSE news, the big story from Friday was the release of the circular by PSG related to the long-awaited value unlocking transaction. The iconic investment holding company will be disappearing from our market if all goes ahead. The plan is to unbundle the entire stak es in PSG Konsult, Curro, Kaap Agri and CA&S to PSG shareholders. Only part of the stake in Stadio will be unbundled, which sends a strong signal about management's view on that asset. There is debate in the market around whether R23 per share as a payout for the assets that aren't being unbundled is sufficient. With a 254 page circular for us to consider, this won't be the last time that you hear about this deal in Ghost Mail.

For now, you can see how PSG puts forward the calculation table in this morning's Ghost Bites, along with other important news like updates from Capital & Counties (currently trying to merge with Shaftesbury) and mining giant BHP which is facing fresh legal trouble in the UK related to the Samarco dam failure in Brazil in 2015. p>

People tend to assume that the JSE-listed universe represents the largest companies in the country. At the top end, that's true. As we head into mid-caps and especially small-caps, you'll be interested to learn that there are many private companies in this country that are larger than listed companies. A great example is the recent deal by Lonsa Everite to acquire Swartland for R1.3 billion, a manufacturer of building materials like doors and windows. In this sponsored article, you can learn more about the transaction and the sheer scale of some of the "under the radar" businesses in this country.

Looking beyond equities, the team from TreasuryONE reminds us that last week was all about the dollar, which surged to record lev els for the year. The main drivers are recession fears, inflation and anticipated interest rate hikes by the FOMC. The Great British pound is trading at levels against the US dollar last seen during the Brexit vote! In emerging markets, the rand traded as high as R16.96 to the dollar on Friday, a near-4% loss for the week. Although load shedding isn't going to help the rand recover, we need to remain vigilant to dollar moves as the main driver of rand weakness (rather than our internal issues).

In the commodity sector, recession fears are clear to see. Gold is not holding up as a safe haven, trading below the $1,800 mark. Palladium had a great day on Friday, up 7% to cap off a volatile week. Oil traded at $105 in the afternoon and copper was quoted at around $7,850.

Later this week, Andre Cilliers (Currency Strategist at TreasuryONE) will entertain and educate us on a webinar entitled Recession, depression and the insane petrol price: what does it mean for the rand? - it doesn't get more topical than that!The webinar takes place on Thursday morning at 9am and attendance is absolutely free. REGISTER AT THIS LINK >>>

In the latest episode of Magic Markets, you can learn about the juicy returns that can be achieved from crypto arbitrage. This is a way to profit from pricing differences in the local vs. international market, with the team from Future Forex providing a seamless solution that makes it easy for you. To learn more about Future Forex and what they do, be su re to listen to Episode 83 of Magic Markets.

That's more than enough to keep you out of trouble today. Enjoy it!