JSEDirect with Simon Brown

Can you find a real edge in prediction markets? Simon hunts the arbitrage — and calls Netflix cheap.

In this week's WorldWideMarkets: • 🎲 Prediction markets: where's the edge, and where's the scam? • 🇧🇷 The Brazil election "two-horse arbitrage" explained • 📈 Betting SA's 2026 inflation print with a Bayesian model • 🎬 Netflix halved — Simon says it's now cheap • 📊 Stocks on the move: Bid Corp, Mr Price, OUTsurance, Vodacom, Absa, Gold Fields

CHAPTERS: 0:00 Introduction 1:20 Prediction markets: where's the edge? 4:35 The Brazil election arbitrage 8:05 Betting SA inflation with a Bayesian model 13:30 Upcoming events 14:25 Oil, Iran & Canada tariffs 16:45 Netflix: cheap for the first time in years 19:50 Stocks on the move

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A month after the year's most hyped listing, nearly everyone who bought SpaceX and held is underwater — and with the 180-day lock-up now gone, Simon Brown explains why insider selling is only getting started.

He then tours the week's biggest moves: Apple's copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and what it means for hardware and an IPO, Purple Group buying Telescope AI to strengthen EasyEquities, oil climbing back into the 80s as Middle East peace talks stall, De Beers closing its last South African mine, and Sappi languishing at 1998 levels.

He closes on a US 10-year yield near 4.6% and the start of a US earnings season priced for 23–24% EPS growth. Topics: SpaceX, OpenAI, Apple, Purple Group, Telescope AI, Brent oil, De Beers, Sappi, Mpact, US Treasuries, bank earnings.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Wars burn hardware, and rebuilding it takes years.

This week Simon Brown works through the defence sector as a replacement thesis — the US fired roughly half its THAAD interceptor stockpile in twelve days against Iran — and settles on Lockheed Martin as his pick, with RTX as a second choice.

He weighs the faster-growing but pricier European names (Leonardo, Thales, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall), runs through the main defence ETF options, and flags the risks: budgets are politics, and forward orders still have to convert.

Also covered: a post-IPO look at Bending Spoons, SK Hynix's planned $28bn Nasdaq listing and the memory trade, and the Q2 review of the Equity Coverage AI project — 26 names, 22 buys and one sell.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

This week's WorldWideMarkets is a tour of cheap stocks that each come with a question mark.

Simon Brown looks at Microsoft, where a forward PE of around 20 against a mean of 33 makes it look inexpensive — except free cash flow has slipped back to 2021 levels as AI and data-centre capex ramps. He revisits Afrimat, a high-quality cyclical now trading near 10-year lows, and digs into Bending Spoons, the Italian roll-up of legacy tech brands like Evernote, WeTransfer and AOL heading to the NASDAQ under code BSP.

He also covers Naspers' latest results, the discount embedded in the Naspers-Prosus-Tencent chain, and why petrol gets a sizeable cut as Brent drops into the low 70s. Topics: Microsoft, Afrimat, Brent oil, Bending Spoons IPO, Naspers, Prosus, Tencent, Takealot.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

MercadoLibre is down 40% for the year, and Simon Brown argues the market is mispricing it as a retailer while ignoring the fintech engine — Mercado Pago — that is becoming Latin America's biggest digital bank. Total payment volume now exceeds gross merchandise volume, even as management deliberately halves operating margins to grab market share.

This week also marks the death of former Fed chair Alan Greenspan at 100, a look at SpaceX's volatile listing that still sits above its IPO price, South African inflation cooling to 4.5% with petrol relief on the way, the first FOMC meeting with Jerome Powell no longer chair, and why Brent crude has fallen back to pre-conflict levels despite a major supply scare.

Topics: MercadoLibre, MELI, Amazon, SpaceX, Alan Greenspan, FOMC, SA inflation, Brent oil, offshore income.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

A US–Iran cessation of hostilities, due to be signed Friday, has collapsed the oil price, firmed the rand back toward 16.00 and let gold hold key support — and Simon Brown argues markets are heading back to where they sat in late February, just with fewer rate cuts on the table.

This episode also unpacks the most hyped IPO in history opening softer than expected, South African inflation surprising lower at 4.5% with chunky petrol and diesel cuts due in July, a no-change FOMC meeting, and a busy stocks-on-the-move list.

Topics: US–Iran ceasefire, oil, rand, gold, emerging markets, SA inflation and fuel prices, FOMC, the big tech IPO, Clicks, Discovery, Bidcorp, Outsurance, Growthpoint, MTN and Mondi.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

The World Cup kicks off Thursday — so which stocks actually win?

Simon Brown ran a data-driven hunt and the answer is counter-intuitive: skip the obvious bets. His own scrape of stadium-adjacent hotels found accommodation available everywhere, with 84 of 104 games unsold, so hoteliers have no pricing power and the retail uplift is marginal. The real edge sits with the kit makers — Adidas and Nike both screen cheap against analyst targets — and the betting operators, Sun International and NYSE-listed Super Group. He also looks at JSE newcomer Canal+ and the free-streaming threat from SABC Plus.

Plus: three mega IPOs landing at once (SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI) and the $160bn funding crunch behind Micron's 16% drop, and a bleak read on the PGM miners.

Topics: World Cup stocks, Adidas, Nike, Canal+, Sun International, Super Group, SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, PGMs.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Simon Brown unpacks a US personal savings rate of just 2.6% — one of the lowest on record — and why it matters more as a fragility gauge than a crash signal.

He covers the collapsed Iran deal and its effect on oil and South African fuel prices, the SARB's prime rate hike to 10.5% and why he thinks the MPC has it wrong, and the near-10% surge in Naspers and Prosus on news that WeChat is putting AI at the centre of its app.

Plus SPAR's brutal trading update, the year-to-date scoreboard with South Korea up 123%, Afrimat's Nersa win, Dell's near four-bagger, and why Simon keeps buying Clicks at two-year lows.

Topics: US savings rate, Iran and oil, SARB rates, Naspers, Prosus, Tencent, SPAR, food retail, South Korea, Dell, Clicks. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

SpaceX comes to market on 12 June at a $1.75 trillion valuation — 94 times sales, where Amazon trades at four. Simon walks through where to actually buy it (Robinhood, Charles Schwab, Fidelity), why xAI is a rounding error in the AI race, and why Tesla is likely to be rolled into SpaceX within two to three years.

Plus the Dow Jones turns 130, Moody's lifts South Africa's outlook from stable to positive, Balwin delists at below NAV with Calgro M3* potentially next, and stocks on the move including Shoprite*, AB InBev, Impala Platinum, and Gold Fields.

Topics: SpaceX IPO, Dow Jones, Moody's, Balwin delisting, Calgro M3, Canal Plus, Pope Leo XIV on AI, oil, Shoprite, AB InBev, Implats, Gold Fields, Anglo Gold Ashanti.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Global bond yields are spiking to multi-decade highs across the US, UK and Japan, and Simon Brown argues this looks a lot like the emerging market debt crises markets usually call doom and gloom.

He unpacks the Pick n Pay sell-down of Boxer shares, the Eastern Cape floods threatening the citrus crop, and the absurd Cerebras IPO trading at 150 times sales.

Plus an update on JustOneLap's institutional-grade research project, results from Calgro M3, WeBuyCars and Astral, the Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2026, and three stocks on the move: British American Tobacco, BHP Group and Clicks.

WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.