Magic Markets

Start your engines has quickly become start your batteries - or has it? Are electric vehicle adoption rates problematic everywhere, or are some companies seeing better adoption than others? Where does this leave hybrids? Where does this leave manufacturers that seem to lack clear strategic direction?

Along with a discussion on European vs. American vs. Japanese manufacturer performance, we dealt with all these topics in this episode of Magic Markets. For a whirlwind overview of the automotive sector at the moment, you're in the right place.

This podcast is brought to you by Investec Focus Radio. Investec's The Current podcast is a great series on the energy transition in South Africa, an important part of our country's geopolitical story and thus highly relevant to South African investors. There are ten excellent shows and Episode 8 focuses on South Africa's electric vehicle transition. Find them here.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.

With the dust barely settled on the US election, Dimitri Zabelin of Pantheon Insights joined us to bring his international geopolitical lens to the show. We talked about the possible impacts of Trump's economy and social policies on inflation, interest rates and the strength of the US economy.

We also talked about a few trade ideas related to the Trump victory, as well as the positioning of Elon Musk in all this.

You can connect with Dimitri on X or LinkedIn, or learn more about Pantheon Insights here.

Episode 201 is brought to you by Future Forex. They are disrupting an industry that desperately deserves to be disrupted: providing forex execution for individuals and businesses, fertile ground for traditional banks to charge large fees as a spread. Future Forex is doing things differently. Refer back to Episode 199 for a discussion with Harry Scherzer on this topic.

Future Forex SA Pty Ltd is an authorised FSP number 51884.

With most of the big names in tech having just released earnings around the same time as US elections, there's so much to consider in the market. We steered clear of the politics for now, focusing on the key drivers of the Magnificent 7 (and Netflix!) and how we are positioned in these stocks.

As our subscribers in Magic Markets Premium know, we don't always agree on the stocks that we cover. There's plenty of that disagreement (and a few laughs) in this show, along with great insights.

Episode 200 is brought to you by Future Forex. They are disrupting an industry that desperately deserves to be disrupted: providing forex execution for individuals and businesses, fertile ground for traditional banks to charge large fees as a spread. Future Forex is doing things differently. Refer back to Episode 199 for a discussion with Harry Scherzer on this topic.

Future Forex SA Pty Ltd is an authorised FSP number 51884.

Harry Scherzer at Future Forex is a familiar voice to Magic Markets listeners, especially those who took advantage of the excellent crypto arbitrage offering that was the foundation of the Future Forex business.

Building on that success, Future Forex is disrupting an industry that desperately deserves to be disrupted: providing forex execution for individuals and businesses, fertile ground for traditional banks to charge large fees as a spread. Future Forex is doing things differently, as explained by Harry in this show.

If you want to learn more about crypto arbitrage at Future Forex as well, refer back to Episode 170 for full details on how to avoid your annual offshore investment allowances going to waste, while generating returns which have consistently outperformed the market.

Future Forex SA Pty Ltd is an authorised FSP number 51884.

Although there's a risk of churning your portfolio too often if you become obsessed with short-term market movements, there's a lot of value to be gained from the way Mohammed Nalla does his quarterly rotation work for institutional clients. He shares some of those insights in this episode of Magic Markets, covering recent sector performance in the US market and where some of the future gains may be found.

This podcast is brought to you by Investec Focus Radio. Investec's The Current podcast is a great series on the energy transition in South Africa, an important part of our country's geopolitical story and thus highly relevant to South African investors. With ten excellent shows to listen to (and the 10th episode being a wrap-up of the season), it's well worth your time digging in. Find them here.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.

The GNU-phoria in South Africa is now a few months old. Loadshedding is becoming a distant (albeit still painful) memory. Sentiment has clearly turned positive, but is this making a difference in day-to-day business decisions around capital allocation decisions?

Every day, the team at Westbrooke is having discussions with private business operators and investors. This puts them in the perfect position to comment on whether things are really improving in South Africa and at what pace.

Dino Zuccollo and Jonti Osher of Westbrooke joined us for this important discussion. To learn more about Westbrooke and to connect with the team, visit their website here.

Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management is an authorised Financial Services Provider, FSP number 46750.

News of stimulus in China has caused substantial volatility in the markets, with a sharp initial rally and then a cooling down as the market started to question the speed of execution on the proposed initiatives.

Of course, this presented a perfect opportunity to talk about the impact of China on portfolios. Justine Brophy of AnBro Capital joined us to do exactly that. For more information, visit the AnBro website.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.

The balance sheet is often the difference between success and failure for a corporate. A strong balance sheet can carry a company through the worst of times. A weak balance sheet is vulnerable to even a minor deterioration in conditions.

Reading a balance sheet is a key step in equity analysis, but what are the most important things to look out for? In this episode, we take you through some key metrics to consider.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.

The income statement is the lifeblood of any business. Luckily, you don't need to be an accountant to understand what's going on there. As is usually the case, there are a few tricks you can use to identify the key areas of focus and the stuff that really matters.

Doing your own research isn't about spending endless hours on a set of financials. It's about knowing how to arrive at a reasonable answer as quickly as possible. In this show, we walk you through our approach to reading an income statement.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.

After covering the building of a bull case in the previous week's show, we moved on to the other side of the coin: the bear case. This requires you to think creatively and dig deeper, as management won't dish out these nuggets and make it easy for you. After all, they are incentivised to drive the bull case.

This episode will help you learn where to look for some of the really important points in a bear case.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.