February 08, 2010
Spend, spend, spend but who has money?
Jean Temkin
Business Day
It’s only a hint, but Pravin Gordhan’s plan to speak to stakeholders within and outside the government about inflation targeting is positive, as the 6% ceiling is increasingly uncomfortable. Prices of oil products rose again last week and we’re already hurting from the first of Eskom’s price hikes. We’re warned that fruit, vegetable and milk prices will increase.

February 05, 2010
Investor’s Notebook
Stephen Cranston
Financial Mail
I might not have given up a Monday evening if I had realised that the guest of honour at a dinner that night wasn’t the great pastor Ray McCauley. Instead it was someone called Paul McCulley, all the way from Virginia (the state, that is, not the airport in Durban).

February 05, 2010
Crisis watch
Andrew McNulty
Financial Mail
A crisis can occur - and linger - in many forms. For some, it may mean continuing tough or weak economic conditions that curb demand and call for constraints on capital spending and stringent cost controls. That constrains activity for many suppliers of services and industrial products.

February 05, 2010
Bottom-line gauge of Metltd’s performance
Ben Temkin
Business Day
As the Private Investor portfolio holds shares in Anglo American, I can hardly ignore the risk that its South African mining interests may fall into the hands of the government. Somehow I don’t really believe that, given, for example, the record of ineptitude in municipal and Eskom management, the African National Congress will be eager to go into the mining business. But, who knows?

February 04, 2010
Fama on what we still don’t know and why there’s no bubble
Michel Pireu
Business Day
The following extracts are from a recent interview by John Cassidy with Eugene Fama, the Chicago School economist who promulgated the efficient market hypothesis: … there was a credit bubble that inflated and ultimately burst …