BizNews Radio

The oil price dropped almost $4 a barrel overnight as the consequences of China's zero-Covid approach to the virus continued to knock its economy. While most of the world, including SA, is now tightening monetary policy to squeeze out higher inflation, China has the opposite problem and yesterday cut two key interest rates in an attempt to warm up an ice cold economy. On Wall Street, the main driver of the market is expectations on inflation. These appear to have changed from fretting about it becoming structural to only transitory - ie a temporary challenge that will soon be overcome. That has further extended a rally in share prices that began in mid-June. On the JSE, big bank shares rose yesterday in sympathy with Absa after it released strong interims results.

SA’s top banking analyst on Absa after interim results: Shares still cheap, 50% upside in next two years

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our partners at the Financial Times have a fantastic podcast episode that tracks the fortunes of President Cyril Ramaphosa since he took over the reins of power from embattled former head of state Jacob Zuma. While Ramaphosa’s 2017 Nasrec win at the ANC’s elective conference came with much fanfare about South Africa being on the precipice of a new dawn - it wasn’t to last with the sitting head of state now dogged by his own Phala Phala skeletons, while his party faced spirally fortunes in last year’s local government elections and what promises to be a bruising time in the upcoming national elections in 2024. In the Rachman Review, the FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman chats to writer and political activist Songezo Zibi - who’s the chairman of the think-tank the Rivonia Circle - a man who may one day plan to run for the highest office in the land. The next 30 minutes an interrogation of a South Africa run by what Zibi believes is an ANC not only morally bankrupt but intellectually starved.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new management team at Absa continue to impress SA's top banking analyst, Kokkie Kooyman of Denker Capital. The bank's interim results for the half year to end June positions Absa as 'the best of the rest' behind market leading FirstRand, about as impressive an accolade as CEO Arrie Rautenbach could ask for. A strong profit increase, expanding market share, a solid balance sheet and a favourable cycle positions Absa shares for further gains - in Kooyman's opinion, around 50% upside over the next two years. He spoke to Alec Hogg of BizNews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wall Street is enjoying its best run in almost a year with share prices posting their fourth consecutive weekly rise, boosted by a strong session on Friday. Also in this episode of the BizNews Breakfast Briefing, bullion is back above $1 800 and the Rand continues to gather momentum. The quiet revolution for Crypto continues with Bitcoin strong again last week as news emerged that major global institutions are taking big bets. On the JSE, the tussle over Telkom gave the stock another double digit share price improvement, but even better gains were posted by some smaller SA-focused industrial stocks which are off most investors' radar.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

However the chips fall during SA's watershed 2024 National Election, the founder of One South Africa Movement, a community-driven, activist organisation, expects to play a prominent role in the likely new ruling coalition. Perhaps even as the country's President. In this fascinating interview, Mmusi Maimane shares how he is helping, Macron-style, to disrupt local politics and offers some suggestions on where it may be headed, The former Leader of SA's Official Opposition also explains why he believes his homeland will follow the same path as the previously inconceivable political transition which swept his friend HH Hichelema to Presidential victory in Zambia. After a shock by-election win in the Eastern Cape by a Maimane-supported independent candidate, his vision of a massive political disruption is no longer in the realms of science fiction - for many it is already appearing to be science fact.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With suitors for Telkom now rapidly emerging thick, rain chairman and co-founder Paul Harris visited the BizNews studio to offer the elevator pitch for a merger of his speedboat with the supertanker. Of all the bidders, Harris alone is not in uncharted waters. In 1998, Harris together with partners Laurie Dippenaar and GT Ferreira merged relatively small and youthful RMB with venerable First National Bank. That created FirstRand, a group now worth R390bn, by some margin the most valuable financial services company on the African continent. Harris was today chastised by Pretoria for not following the rules when yesterday publicly disclosing rain’s desire to merge Africa’s leading 5G player with the former State-owned monopoly. He promises to follow the letter of the law - and jump through whatever hoops are necessary to give Telkom’s stakeholders a compelling alternative to being swallowed up by MTN - or continuing to go it alone.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A team of Israeli water experts is in South Africa to meet various municipalities, hoping to share world-leading technology that could help turn around the country’s ailing water infrastructure. South Africa is a water-stressed country with some bulk infrastructure as old as 80 years. Dr Clive Lipchin is heading the team of Israeli academics and spoke as part of a panel in Johannesburg. Lipchin is positive that their overtures to assist South Africa won’t be undermined or dismissed by politics, as an increasingly fractious relationship persists between the two countries. Michael Appel from BizNews has this report.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US stock markets took a breather overnight, shrugging off more good news on the inflation front where July's growth in the Producer Price Index dropped to its lowest since October 2021. The JSE had a good session yesterday, helped by strong interim numbers reported by MTN which led the charge with a 9% share price jump. Close behind was MTN's takeover target Telkom, up another 6% after six year old data-only telecoms company rain handed the Telkom board a proposal to merge with the former telecoms monopoly. Also in this episode of the BizNews Breakfast Briefing, financial insider Sean Peche exposes how billions in fees are being harvested by SA's underperforming big Balanced Fund unit trusts; and Joe Biden is set to enjoy a major win in Washington today.

Insider Sean Peche exposes SA’s R320bn Balanced Funds ripoff: How Big Three unit trusts fleece savers

FirstRand redux: Rain wants a merger with Telkom, aims to spoil MTN’s planned party

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Depression and anxiety are mental illnesses that have become ubiquitous in modern society and their prevalence is on the rise. As is the widespread use of antidepressants and other psychiatric medication to combat the crippling symptoms which accompany them. Antidepressants, however, are in no way a panacea to depression. In addition to treating the symptoms and not the root cause, many antidepressants have terrible side-effects, as discussed with Dr Joanna Moncrieff recently. Dr Ted Dinan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at University College Cork and one of the world's main experts on this link between mental health and our guts, has been looking to the gut for potential alternatives to antidepressants. BizNews spoke to Dinan about the gut microbiome and how psychobiotics could revolutionise the treatment of depression.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The DA remains adamant that an ad-hoc committee is the most appropriate and effective means through which to hold President Cyril Ramaphosa accountable for the allegations stemming from the Phala Phala robbery in February 2020. But in July this year, National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula denied their request, citing other organs of state which were dealing with the matter. Meanwhile, the Speaker announced that she would refer the African Transformation Movement's (ATM) Section 89 motion - to impeach Ramaphosa - to an independent panel composed of three panel members. DA deputy chief whip Siviwe Gwarube told BizNews parties have until 1 September to put forward their nominations for the panel. She argues that a newly announced probe into the Phala Phala matter by the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) would be limited in its scope, probing only two aspects. These include deputy state security minister Zizi Kodwa's alleged involvement in a cover-up, and the abuse of intelligence funds. Ramaphosa would be spared scrutiny by the JSCI, which operates behind closed doors with all committee members sworn to secrecy. Should the Section 89 Committee find a prima facie case for Ramaphosa’s impeachment, Gwarube explains it will require a two-thirds majority to boot the President from office.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices