Jsedirect With Simon Brown

Naspers and Prosus have roughly halved over the past year. Simon Brown unpacks why: three-quarters of the fall is Tencent, the rest is a stronger rand, while the holdco discount has barely budged at around 40%. At R664 Prosus offers about R1,135 of value, but billions in buybacks haven't closed the gap, and Tencent's capex surge has spooked the market. Topics: Top 40 chart of the week, actively managed ETFs at the Standard Bank Power Hour, the new JustOneLap ETF dividends page, Naspers and Prosus discount maths, the buyback loop, Tencent capex and AI, Just Eat Takeaway and iFood, bull and bear cases, and the November results to watch. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

South Africa sold 61,645 new cars in September, the most in almost 20 years, yet the listed motor stocks are falling. Simon Brown explains why: cheap, well-specced Chinese cars are driving the volume while crushing pricing power across new cars, used cars and rental fleets. He digs into the naamsa numbers, what flatters the headline, and why the market is pricing a cyclical peak, then ranks the six JSE motor stocks. Topics: US unemployment chart of the week, actively managed ETFs Power Hour, naamsa September sales, rental fleets and demos, Chinese brands, used car deflation, WeBuyCars, Zeda, Motus, CMH*, Super Group, Metair, hybrids and EVs. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com, powered by Standard Bank and Shyft. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

Curro has delisted, leaving ADvTECH and Stadio as the only listed education stocks on the JSE, and both screen as expensive. Simon Brown compares their valuations, looks at the structural shortage of school and university seats in South Africa, and weighs the pending university-status catalyst to find the smart bet. He also covers the MPC's rate hike and a global bond yield sell-off pushing the SA ten-year back towards 9%. Topics: MPC rate hike, global bond yields, Stadio index inclusion, ADvTECH vs Stadio valuations, private schooling in South Africa, the university seat shortage, UNISA, university status, and the investment verdict. Worldwide Markets is powered by Standard Bank Global Markets, Retail and Shyft. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com. Download the ADvTech and Stadio ernings report valuations here.

Platinum smashed its 2008 record in January, then fell almost 50%. Simon Brown works through what actually happened to the platinum group metals and why the JSE-listed miners are still generating enormous cash at the lower price. A 1.5 million ounce deficit became a 265,000 ounce surplus in a year, almost entirely because investment demand and Chinese jewellery buying walked away above 3,000 dollars. Electric vehicles were never the real threat. The growth story nobody is pricing is the AI build-out, with ruthenium up 151 percent and iridium up 30 percent on data centre and hard drive demand. Then the five miners side by side: Valterra, Northam, Implats, Sibanye-Stillwater and Tharisa, and the 1 December deadline on the Northam approach.  Download the free report here. Topics: platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, PGM supply and demand, AI demand, Valterra, Northam, Implats, Sibanye-Stillwater, Tharisa, FOMC, SARB, the rand. Worldwide Markets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Shoprite is trading at all-time highs and has still de-rated 23% in two years. Simon Brown works through the FY26 numbers — 7% revenue growth, a 6% trading margin, HEPS up 12.2% and internal selling price inflation of just 0.8% against national food inflation of 3.9% — and asks whether a business generating a 19.8% return on invested capital against an 11.5% cost of capital is still offering value at 314c. Sixty60 gets the closest look: R25.5bn of sales, 11.1% of South African supermarket sales, and a super app strategy reaching into coffee, cellular, pets, pharmacy and financial services. Before that, the US 10-year above 5%, a Fed credibility problem ahead of Wednesday's FOMC, and a fuel under-recovery large enough to put a local hike back on the table. Topics: FOMC, US 10-year yields, SA MPC, fuel price, inflation, Shoprite, Sixty60, Checkers, Boxer, Pick n Pay, SPAR, Woolworths, Nedbank, Absa, Clicks, Naspers. Worldwide Markets is part of JustOneLap.com. Sign up for our newsletter.

This week WorldWideMarkets runs Simon Brown's keynote from a corporate event: four slides on the four issues facing global markets right now, with AI deliberately left off the list. The world lost roughly 20% of its oil supply when the Strait of Hormuz closed, and Brent still only reached $120 — Simon explains why the oil market had far more slack than anyone realised, and why $80 rather than $60 is the level to plan around. He then covers the rand at R15.92, the two elections falling on 3 and 4 November, and the story he thinks matters most: $40 trillion of US government debt now costing $1.1 trillion a year to service, and a bond market that no finance minister can push around. Finally, why a lifelong gold sceptic now holds gold. Topics: Brent crude, Strait of Hormuz, China's strategic reserves, Taiwan, USD/ZAR, SA local government elections, US midterms, G7 bond yields, US debt, AngloGold Ashanti, gold ETFs. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com. Newsletter https://just-one-lap-newsletter.beehiiv.com/

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is selling short-dated paper and buying long in an attempt to force the 10 and 30-year yields lower. Simon Brown explains why fighting a market rarely ends well, and what that trade has already done to gold and the rand. With gold back at $4,630 and the rand at R16, he then works through all five JSE-listed gold miners — Pan African, DRDGOLD, Harmony, Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti — comparing production, all-in sustaining costs, balance sheets and analyst price targets, before ranking them and setting out the specific red flag attached to each. He closes with two JSE stocks moving the wrong way: Naspers and Clicks. Topics: US Treasury yields, gold price, rand gold price, JSE gold miners, all-in sustaining costs, hedging and collars, Ghana mining leases, Naspers, Clicks. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com. Sign up for our newsletter https://just-one-lap-newsletter.beehiiv.com/

Absa and Nedbank are the two cheap banks on the JSE, both trading near 1.2 times tangible book while Standard Bank and FirstRand sit close to two. Simon Brown puts them side by side after both reported and finds numbers so similar that valuation stops being the question: the same fifteen percent return on equity, the same credit loss ratio near zero point nine percent, the same capital. What separates them is that Nedbank has committed to seventeen percent return on equity by 2028 and Absa has not. He also covers the expiry of the sixty-day Iran accord with Brent above ninety dollars, long bond yields back at 2008 levels, a major upgrade to the JustOneLap ETF database, and stocks on the move. Topics: Absa results, Nedbank results, return on equity, cost to income, bank valuations, Iran and oil, the rand, global bond yields, sovereign debt, ETF database, Mr Price, Shoprite, Clicks, Woolworths. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com. Sign up for our weekly newsletter ~ https://just-one-lap-newsletter.beehii

Pick n Pay has stopped bleeding customers, but it hasn't started healing. Simon Brown goes deep on the retailer's 20-week trading update, where group turnover rose 2.7% while core Pick n Pay SA supermarkets went backwards. He unpacks the so-called negative stub — a R14 billion market cap against an R18.8 billion stake in Boxer plus cash — and explains why capital gains tax makes those "free" 1,538 stores a lot less free. He also looks at the Section 189A labour consultation covering 22,000 employees, the base rates on retail turnarounds globally, and why Shoprite's ability to absorb inflation and grow Sixty60 gives it weapons Pick n Pay cannot afford. His call: stay in Shoprite. Topics include Pick n Pay, Boxer, Shoprite, Checkers Sixty60, Woolworths, retail turnarounds, Section 189A, and the OST to Shyft migration. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Mr Price and Clicks have both been hammered, and on a chart they look like the same trade. They are not. Simon Brown holds both and spends this episode pulling the two businesses apart to work out which one he actually wants to own. Clicks is on its cheapest P/E in a decade but is losing share in the high-margin categories that pay the bills, with Dis-Chem, Checkers Sixty60, SPAR Health and Woolworths all circling. Mr Price is on 12.2 times earnings with a 5.3% dividend yield and a German acquisition the market has already priced as a failure. Also covered: US earnings season running at 47% growth, why the South African consumer squeeze is worst at the top end, and Saudi Aramco's warning that rebuilding oil inventories could take 18 months. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Vodacom has cut its dividend payout ratio from 75% to 65%, which pushes one of the JSE's dependable income names down the list. Simon Brown runs the Top 40 and the mid-cap screen to find where quality local yield actually sits, and shows how Growthpoint, Nedbank, Coronation and Standard Bank can be combined into a home-built income portfolio yielding roughly seven and a half to eight percent, growing ahead of inflation. He also unpacks Alphabet's record quarter, where two thirds of the profit was unrealised paper gains and free cash flow turned negative for the first time on record, and asks how any investor values Tesla when the CEO has promised self-driving cars every year for a decade. Topics: Alphabet results, AI capex, circular AI revenue, Vodacom dividend policy, JSE dividend yields, income ETFs, Tesla valuation, Elon Musk, Bid Corp, Clicks, Absa. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

Can you find a real edge in prediction markets? Simon hunts the arbitrage — and calls Netflix cheap. In this week's WorldWideMarkets: •

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.