Jsedirect With Simon Brown

Viceroy charges into Capitec* I think we're missing a point with this latest Viceroy report on Capitec. Sure we're proud of the business and if you're a shareholder you've made amazing returns. But we seem to be circling the wagons and shooting the messenger rather then actually discussing the merits of the report. Two important thoughts to ponder. What if Viceroy had published their Steinhoff report before Steinhoff admitted to their fraud, would we have believed them? Simple answer is no and we would have looked stupid when the company admitted the fraud. A fund manager does their research in a company, decides it's a great sock. They buy it and then they go out into the world promoting the stock - talking it up in the media and notes to clients. How is this different from what Viceroy is doing (aside from Viceroy shorting rather then buying)? Here are some others who have been asking questions about Capitec. Benguela Fund Managers wrote to Capitec on 19 January 2018 asking questions. Summit Financial Part

Global Dividend Aristocrats ETF This week Simon chats to Chris Rule from CoreShares on their soon to be listed Global Dividend Aristocrats ETF. It uses dividends as a quality metric rather then searching for yield and much like the MSCI World ETFs we have locally it is concentrated in the US at 53% with Europe making up another 22% but it is light on tech. You can book for the events here. Subscriber to our feed here Sign up for email alerts as a new show goes live Subscribe or review us in iTunes. JSE – The JSE is a registered trademark of the JSE Limited. JSEDirect is an independent broadcast and is not endorsed or affiliated with, nor has it been authorised, or otherwise approved by JSE Limited. The views expressed in this programme are solely those of the presenter, and do not necessarily reflect the views of JSE Limited.

Simon Shares Aspen (JSE code: APN) being vice squeezed. Woolies* (JSE code: WHL) trading update, "impact of a potential re-assessment of the carrying value of the David Jones assets". Watch out for the "goodwill write downs are not cash", true but they were paid for with cash. Shoprite* (JSE code: SHP) update seemed lighter then I had expected, good but not awesome. That said market liked it and stock is up over 6% since the SENS. * I hold ungeared positions. New year resolutions for investors "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face" Mike Tyson Stop watching the prices. These are long term investments, check them every so often if you must but certainly not even weekly never mind intra-day. Only own stocks that you have at least three strong reasons for owning and revisit these reasons at least once a year. Sell the dogs in your portfolio, sell them now (I'll wait). Sell anything that is not the best management and be very careful about what qualifies as best management (think Steinhoff).

Every year the first JSE Direct of the year is our annual predictions show. Marc Ashton, Keith McLachlan, Small/Midcap fund manager at Alpha Wealth and Just One Lap founder Simon Brown review their predictions from the previous year and make their top three predictions for 2018. They then also make a call on the Top40 and ZAR/US$ for the year. You can find the 2017 edition here. Subscriber to our feed here Sign up for email alerts as a new show goes live Subscribe or review us in iTunes. JSE – The JSE is a registered trademark of the JSE Limited. JSEDirect is an independent broadcast and is not endorsed or affiliated with, nor has it been authorised, or otherwise approved by JSE Limited. The views expressed in this programme are solely those of the presenter, and do not necessarily reflect the views of JSE Limited.

Simon Shares EOH (JSE code: EOH), so the collapse was because of directors margin calls that forced them to sell? This is an epic disaster, if it was my board I would fire them. A share price collapse has real consequences, especially for a company like EOH that uses their shares for acquisitions. Steinhoff (JSE code: SNH) mess continues but an interesting meme occurring in an attempt to make sure the asset managers take no blame. The same happened after African Bank, Enron and other notable corporate collapses. I not saying we should be jailing the asset managers but we should be asking hard questions and having the debate. I am seeing more and more analysis on the fact that SNH was not quality, sure it is in some (but not all) cases after the fact but enough people are speaking out. Yet this low quality stock was valued at around R300billion at its peak and suggesting that it was impossible to tell is an outright lie as proved by many people being short and querying the numbers. Surely as an industry it i

Our signature yearend JSE Power Hour presented by Just One Lap founder, Simon Brown. Simon looks at what he predicted last year before embarking on his 2018 predictions that include; Steinhoff (JSE code: SNH) Naspers (JSE code: NPN) Bitcoin (BTC) The December ANC elective conference, who'll win and how will this impact our market Junk status The R50billion tax hole looming in the February budget Interest rates The Rand International markets Commodities His preferred stocks and ETFs for 2018. The PDF of the presentation is here and video here.

Simon Shares Twitter poll for tonight's JSE Power Hour presentation ~ What's your expectation for the Top40 in 2018? Time for my annual poll .. What's your expectation for the Top40 in 2018 ?#JSE — Simon Brown (@SimonPB) December 4, 2017   Steinhoff, where there's smoke Markus Jooste has also quit Stenihoff (JSE code: SNH), Star (JSE code: SRR), PSG (JSE code: PSG) and Phumelela Gaming (JSE code: PHM) boards. Steinhoff CFO and Star CEO Ben la Grange has quit as CEO of Star, but seemingly stays on at Steinhoff, for now. It's an oldie but it always true. Where there's smoke theirs fire and locally that is Steinhoff. Forever people have been in one of two camps on this stock. They either loved it or didn't understand the financials and stayed well away. I have always been in the latter camp and recently the warnings have gotten dire and now the CEO is out, results delayed and an investigation by PwC to try and understand exactly what's happen. Now hindsight is easy, but there has been a lot of smoke around St

Simon Shares More downgrades as S&P Globals makes our local debt junk as well to go with Fitch. Moody's gave us 90 days which takes us to just after the February budget and if they drop us then we full on 100% junk, AKA Brazilian. The Rand is powering ahead trading in the R13.60's against US$. My call for a stronger Rand remains in force. Slowly but surely. The latest Long4Life* (JSE code: L4L) deal is a perfect fit with the Gauteng based contract bottler they are also buying. I like the share at these lower prices. Yearend portfolio clean up is coming up and the one I eyeing is Calgro M3* (JSE code: CGR) in my second tier portfolio. I sold most back when Nene was fired keeping a few and they have pretty much halved since then. Checking my notes from when I sold my plan was to monitor and sell if I saw weakness. Well we got the weakness, but I didn't sell. Now I could hold them on a prayer - but I'd rather just bin them. I've been writing my yearend columns for FinWeek looking into 2018 events and stocks

Simon Shares I am traveling this week so recording on Monday and hence no thoughts. Naspers (JSE code: NPN) hits R4,000.00. Survey results are out. Up coming events; Position your portfolio for 2018 * I hold ungeared positions. Stop faffing, start trading I want to aim this mostly at the newbie traders. Those who've been flirting with the idea of trading for ages. Maybe you've tried your hand at it but failed or perhaps you haven't dipped your toe into the water as yet. Trading is not hard, the psychology is hard, but there are ways to deal with that. First find a strategy you think makes sense, then start working on it. Test it with hundreds of back tested paper trades. Tweak as required and test again, rinse and repeat until you have something that seems to have a profitable edge. This may take you weeks of manual work - that's fine. Then when you have something that seems to work, start with a small amount of money. Small as this will help reduce the stress. Set the rules and risk management and get

Simon Shares Zimbabwean coup, or not coup or whatever. People are all asking me what's the best investment thesis here. There isn't one, a coup is not great for an economy. A democratic functioning state is what is good for investments. My comments last week about large M&A activity seldom working promoted a number of responses about successful deals - but all were private (not listed). This makes sense, no hype, no over paying. Just good old fashioned due diligence and right price paid. Consolidated Infrastructure Group (JSE code; CIL) update and delayed results is a massive mess. Third update and this one says we simple don't know how bad things will be nor if previous results are sound. Major management failure both to communicate to market and to manage the company. Spar (JSE code: SPP) results show revenue up 5.4% while operating costs increased 19.2%. Not good at all. Switzerland seems to be coming right, Ireland not and South Africa is tough. Netcare (JSE code: NTC) trading update is all about the

Simon Shares More highs locally and global for markets. And of course that makes everybody worried and certain we're about to crash. Well we will most definitely crash, just nobody (and I mean nobody) knows when. So as always ignore the doomsayers. Tencent buys a 10% stake in Snap, a clever deal as it gets them into the US market. It also means we now all own some Snap via any Top40 ETF we have with Naspers (JSE code: NPN) in it. Purple Group (JSE code: PPE) results were rough. Ignoring a write down of Real People, GT24/7 made a sliver of profit, Emperor is losing AUM hand over fist while EasyEquities continues loses. With almost 60k users the burn rate for EasyEquities is about R3m a month with revenue of some R800k a month. That's a large gap that needs a lot more customers to close. They do however have the money from Sanlam that tides them over for the next 3 years while they try turn the low cost idea into profits. Steinhoff (JSE code SNH) is back in the bad news on reports that it hid US1billion worth

Simon Shares Famous Brands* (JSE code: FBR) results were nasty. Local was weak but the real issue is the UK GBP purchase that cost a bunch and is not performing. Long4Life (JSE code: L4L) is now 510c as I record. Nice price and a lesson that we must never chase stocks. Sasfin (JSE code: SFN) has a price-to-book (PB) of around 1x and that is always a buy signal for the stock. Ungeared and hold until PB is 1.4x or higher, about 12-18 months typically. You'll get NAV uplift, dividends and the price gain above NAV. Clicks (JSE code: CLS) are a master class in how a set of results should look if the company really is firing on all cylinders. Revenue +10.9%, HEPS +14.5% and the dividend +18.4%. The Traders Life three part series with IG is online. Up coming events; High probability derivative trading Position your portfolio for 2018 * I hold ungeared positions. How important is your trading system? Your trading system is one of the least important parts of a successful traders arsenal. Yes you need one and y

Books Trading Trading in the Zone – Mark Douglas (detailed review) Trend Following – Michael Covel (detail review) Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre Investing One up on Wall Street – Peter Lynch (detailed review) Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits – Phil Fisher (detailed review) Effective Investor – Franco Busetti Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham 123 Download the audio file here Subscriber to our feed here Sign up for email alerts as a new show goes live Subscribe or review us in iTunes. JSE – The JSE is a registered trademark of the JSE Limited. JSEDirect is an independent broadcast and is not endorsed or affiliated with, nor has it been authorised, or otherwise approved by JSE Limited. The views expressed in this programme are solely those of the presenter, and do not necessarily reflect the views of JSE Limited.

Simon Shares Local markets have been making new all time highs and right now the sellers look shell shocked and unable to exert any real downside pressure. Taste (JSE code: TAS) results were just a shocker and they need money fast, real fast. Pick 'n Pay (JSE code: PIK) results were uninspiring. Like for like sales after inflation went down as they continue to lose market share and operating margins remains very weak at 1.6%. Calgro M3* (JSE code: CGR) not bad is we strip out the funnies. Memorial parks coming along and Western Cape drought hurting a bit as is the weak economy. I reduced exposure at the the time of three finance ministers in 4 days in December 2015 and am not upping my exposure for now. Long4Life (JSE code: L4L) at 550c starts to get interesting and offers an important lesson - careful of chasing hype. Up coming events; FX – Wealth Creator or Poverty stamp The Traders Life: The tools High probability derivative trading Position your portfolio for 2018 * I hold ungeared positions. Mana

Simon Shares Just two weeks ago I was moaning about a sideways market going nowhere, now we have eight green days in a row with local markets joining much of the world at all time highs. Famous Brands* (JSE code: FBR) trading update was bleak, very bleak. Interest costs we expected, they suggest SA doing well enough. But UK losing money after paying some R2billion is a shocker. PPC (JSE code: PPC) has doubled in price, remember I said wait for doubling and then buy. So heres your entry.  Santova* (JSE code: SNV) comes out with very good trading update considering ZAR strength during the period. List of all listed ETFs ranked by their TERs. A great list from Kristia. Up coming events; FX – Wealth Creator or Poverty stamp The Traders Life: The tools  * I hold ungeared positions. When to short shares A recent flurry of emails from people shorting stocks and getting burnt. In particular shorts on Capitec*, Naspers and Kumba. A side note that emailing me is a form of confirmation bias as the emailers wanted

Simon Shares Market going nowhere, I take a week off and it literally goes sideways in tight range. Capitec* (JSE code: CPI) results saw HEPS up 17% (trading statement said 15%-18%, they always come in near top of range). Lots of wow numbers; 9.2million active clients and cost-to-income ratio at 36%. The disputed arrears coverage ratio is back at 237% after concerns about it decreasing a year ago. Discovery* (JSE code: DSY) results solid with lost of spending on the future. Still my favourite share I own in terms of potential and I happy to add below R156. Richemont* (JSE code: CFR) trading update shows they turned the corner re nasty watch sales that resulted in them having to buy back watches. Stock trading up at all time highs above R120. My buy price is R118. Santova* (JSE code: SNV) nice clean deal buying out a 25% silent partner from their Australian operation at decent price. Gives immediate extra AUD earnings. New Ashburton World ETF Up coming events; The Traders Life: The money with IG and Simon Br

Simon Shares Metrofile* (JSE code: MFL) results very modest as they reduce dividend for H2 but keep it flat for the year. Clover (JSE code: CLR) results were ouch, very ouch. They call it a perfect storm, I call it over priced branded milk. Spur (JSE code: SUR) were also very bleak and give us some insights to the Famous Brands* (JSE code: FBR) due at the end of October. Now Famous Brands has a way better business model and management, but expect very tough results from them. JPMorgan's Dimon said that Bitcoin 'is a fraud'. Right or wrong the price collapsed again and expect a lot more attacks from 'traditional' financial institutions, attacks that Bitcoin fans will say prices its value as it shakes up the establishment. No to tax, yes to fees? Up coming events; The Traders Life: The money with IG and Simon Brown FX vs Shares - Wealth Creator or Poverty stamp  * I hold ungeared positions. Everything is at all time highs Why does everybody hate highs? If we're an investor highs are a great thing as it me

Simon Shares Capitec* (JSE code: CPI) trading update is looking for HEPS to be 15%-18% higher. Modest for a 27x PE stock with consensus being 18.7%. The DB x-tracker ETFs will see their name change on Monday 18 September as Sygnia completes the purchase process. The new name is Sygnia Itrix and the ETF codes will see DBX replaced with SYG.Rhodes Food Group (JSE code: RFG) got hit after a trading update that saw decent local operations but declining offshore sales further hurt by the stronger Rand. ARC Investments (JSE code: ARC) lists today (7 September) after an over subscribed placement at 850c. They have an interesting set of assets, mostly unlisted with net asset value (NAV) also 850c and an investment holding company should trade at a 10%-20% discount to the NAV. So we should see some weakness which give an entry to those wanting stock. Star lists later this month and after the Shoprite* (JSE code: SHP) vote on Tuesday to buy the shares back from previous CEO they now have total control of SHP. Reading

Simon Shares Telkom (JSE code: TKG) has confirmed government wants to sell their 39% stake in the company, likely to bail out SAA. Classic rookie error, exiting good trade to keep bad trades. Amazingly good results from Home Choice (JSE code: HIL), but with zero liquidity in the stock the results are merely of passing interest. Decent results form AdaptIT (JSE code: ADI) albeit some margin pressure in the education and financial services segments albeit with the latter doing decent revenue growth. All considered around 900c price is a fair value. I mentioned last week I was digging more into ADvTech* (JSE code: ADH) to determine a price to buy at and have now started buying with my fair value (so price below which I am happy to buy) being 1970c. The Harvey storm has hit land again, this time at Louisiana and this is just next to Lake Charles where Sasol* (JSE code: SOL) is building their Ethan Cracker plant. So far Lake Charles has been spared the worst of the wind and rain but we have a few more days of rai

Simon Shares Shoprite* (JSE code: SHP) results were stellar, the best food retailer anywhere on this planet? Operating margin from 5.6% last year to 5.76% in the 2017 (more than double that of Pick n Pay), market share growing, rest of Africa rocking (albeit some currency pains). ADvTech (JSE code: ADH) results show tertiary booming but schools under a bit of pressure that they partly blame on "rise in the number of families emigrating"? I like the stock, am doing some more digging and working out my preferred pricing. Will update my portfolio page as and when, certainly cheaper and better positioned than Curro (JSE code: COH). Implats (JSE code: IMP) wins the award for stupidest thing in a SENS announcement "The major reason for the decline in HEPS from the comparative period is that the prior year gross profit declined to a gross loss in the current year." BHP Billiton* (JSE code: BIL) results show them back on track. Reducing debt, paying dividends and not going crazy on capex. I have been holding for age