The SA Reserve Bank surprised us by raising interest rates by 0.25%, the first hike since early 2016 - bringing the repo rate to 6.75% and the prime lending rate to 10.25%. SARB argued that it was a risk mitigation strategy, clearly trying to avoid stagflation (which is high inflation, low economic growth and high unemployment), and is difficult to manage. The Rand strengthened dramatically from 13.95 against the USD to 13.73, MPC growth predictions for the year was lowered to 0.6% (prev 0.7%) and kept the same for 2019: 1.9% and 2020: 2%. Anthea threatened to put Gareth’s name forward to SARB as they are looking for another external MPC member.
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Anthea kicks off this week's business and financial segment of The Money Shot by responding to a listener's email. Not a great start to the week on company news, Vodacom (-8%), BTI (-11%), Rebosis (-21%) and Tsogo Sun (-3%). On the bright side, Discovery Bank launches, while Tencent reports results, and some good news on Torre.
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Discovery Group Chief Executive Adrian Gore tells Gareth Cliff about the newly launched Discovery Bank, which has been dubbed "South Africa's first behavioural bank". You can also get financially savvy with our series Smart Money - brought to you by Discovery.
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What are some of the burning hot political stories this week? Journalist Ivo Vegter brings a recap of some of them for this week's edition of The Burning Platform, touching on Barbabra Hogan's testimony, among other newsworthy discussions. And exclusively to CliffCentral.com, Discovery Group Chief Executive Adrian Gore shares details of Discovery Bank, now dubbed "South Africa's first behavioural bank".
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When the Bitcoin price hit an all-time high, many people thought it was a great way to make some easy money. There were stories of people who had made a fortune overnight, and social media was full of clickbait 'get rich quick' schemes. Mpho Dagada did become a Bitcoin millionaire, at the age of 21. Gareth Cliff finds out how he did it. Decrypto is powered by Luno.
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According to Anthea, it really wasn't a bad week on the JSE as the week started with trying to recover some of October’s losses. She updates on the Rand trading with a mind of its own, SAA being the talk of the markets as they hint at selling shares in the business and MTN looking set to settle with the Nigerian Central Bank. Discovery raised R1.85bn overnight by issuing 11.4mn new shares @ R162/sh - Anthea also comments on this, as well as all that's happening in the banking sector as Tyme launched last week and Standard Bank plans a secondary listing. She concludes with a retail sector update: Foschini and Richemont releasing results and Alibaba having their 10th Singles Day yesterday, netting $10bn in the first hour of trading.
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Ben is broken, quite literally. His torso seems to have had a stroke - leaving him deformed, and he is now destined for a life of circus tricks on Instagram. Some interesting listener mails, a history lesson around the First World War from Gareth, then into the latest news and sport headlines, Anthea on the finance, plus a bit of Siya.
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The month of October brought about the most volatile market we've seen in a while, and down the most since 2009. On company news, Famous Brands and Raubex reported interim results, Impala Platinum released a solid quarterly production report with MTN releasing their solid update. I&J and Karan beef have been implicated in collusion, while Sanlam released plans of their new BEE deal. SA unemployment was up again last quarter to 27.5%, but on a positive note, a 30c decrease in petrol price this month is something to look forward to.
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#GCS 26.11.18 Pt1
The week gets going with rumours of Oscar being under house arrest now. Siya's upcoming family festive season mess. Leigh-Ann is in the wars health-wise, Ben had an incredible weekend at the Gary Player Invitational, and Gareth got to enjoy a spectacular wedding in Cape Town. The aftermath of Black Friday... then into the news, sport, finance and Siya's happy view on the world.
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