Finweek - English

Finweek is South Africa’s leading financial weekly magazine focusing on investment. With its brisk, creative and authoritative analysis of business and investment issues, it’s an essential business tool in the daily battle for competitive advantage. Today's business decision-makers have to cope with increased pressure on their time and are expected, more than ever before, to succeed in the face of stiffer competition. Finweek provides relevant information in quick bytes, along with award-winning investment advice.

from the editor

Banking on an inclusive digital revolution • SA fintech firms are working towards innovation and banking the unbanked but government support is needed.

Foreign skilled workers needed • The latest critical skills list from the government is dovetailing into the state’s plans to boost the economy.

Finweek - English

in brief

DOUBLE TAKE

South Africa is boosting Anglo’s earnings — again • Amplats and Kumba’s cost reductions boost the local operations’ contributions to the “mothership’s” profit.

Orwellian or not, Amplats’ approach may save lives • In essence, the group has developed in partnership with South Korea’s electronics conglomerate, Samsung, bespoke fitness watches for its 54 000-strong workforce, primarily as a track-and-trace mechanism for Covid-19 disease outbreaks.

When an old Amplats wish becomes true…

Bridging the digital divide with satellite technology • SES is using advanced satellite and communication technologies to bring connectivity, comparable with fibre, to remote areas.

Betting on bonds • Equities are not delivering sufficient risk-adjusted returns in the view of one of SA’s top-performing prudential funds.

Risky, but highly rewarding

The bull trend may end

Share confirms end of bear phase

Abandoning its three-year bear trend

When the government taxes by the backdoor • There’s a sneaky way in which the government can get its cut. And it’s all thanks to inflation.

Simon’s stock tips • Founder and director of investment website JustOneLap.com, Simon Brown, is finweek’s resident expert on the stock markets. In this column he provides insight into recent market developments.

Trading inflation fears • As the rate of return on US treasury bonds increases, it leaves technology shares (last year’s undisputed winners) in a difficult position.

Will risk-taking dissipate? • The scope for central banks to influence the markets could become more limited over time with other forces driving the market.

Hot US market boosts the case for homebuilder Lennar • With consumer savings and fiscal stimulus driving consumer confidence in the US, house-building stocks are worth considering.

SA’s role in precious metals • Schalk Louw gives an overview of how precious metal prices are correlated with inflation.

Investors should view their portfolios as mini-conglomerates • In his annual letter to shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway’s billionaire owner, Warren Buffett, discusses real profits, being minority shareholders and the importance of customer service.

LISTED ASSET MANAGERS LOOK ABROAD TO BOOST PERFORMANCE • As South Africa’s savings pool contracts and retirement schemes are defunded due to high unemployment, where will locally-listed fund managers find future growth?

The case for Quilter

Picking the best stock pickers

The trouble with being listed

MTN MAY LOOK CHEAP, BUT UNPREDICTABILITY MAY KEEP IT THERE • Africa’s largest mobile operator is selling assets in “volatile” markets, such as the Middle East. Now it may turn its attention more to an expanding African population and economy.

The UN’s 17 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT goals

LOOKING FOR ESG IN SA • There is...