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WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

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All about investing on the JSE with Simon Brown. Every Thursday.

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#693
September 2 · 30 min
Oil, elections, rates and gold: the four things that matter
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/
#692
August 25 · 22 min
Ranking JSE gold miners as the yellow metal is on the move
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/
#691
August 18 · 20 min
Cheap for a Reason: ABSA versus Nedbank. Which to buy?
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.beehiiv.com/
#690
August 11 · 18 min
Pick n Pay has stopped bleeding. But has it started healing?
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. 📅 Events: justonelap.com/events 📧 Newsletter: https://just-one-lap-newsletter.beehiiv.com/
#689
August 4 · 20 min
Mr Price and Clicks. End of an Era, or an Entry Point?
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.
#688
July 28 · 21 min
Finding quality JSE dividends | Alphabet profits booms, stock falls
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.
#687
July 21 · 23 min
Finding an edge in prediction markets | Netflix, market hate is an opportunity?
Can you find a real edge in prediction markets? Simon hunts the arbitrage — and calls Netflix cheap. In this week's WorldWideMarkets: • 🎲 Prediction markets: where's the edge, and where's the scam? • 🇧🇷 The Brazil election "two-horse arbitrage" explained • 📈 Betting SA's 2026 inflation print with a Bayesian model • 🎬 Netflix halved — Simon says it's now cheap • 📊 Stocks on the move: Bid Corp, Mr Price, OUTsurance, Vodacom, Absa, Gold Fields CHAPTERS: 0:00 Introduction 1:20 Prediction markets: where's the edge? 4:35 The Brazil election arbitrage 8:05 Betting SA inflation with a Bayesian model 13:30 Upcoming events 14:25 Oil, Iran & Canada tariffs 16:45 Netflix: cheap for the first time in years 19:50 Stocks on the move 🌐 More at JustOneLap.com
#686
July 14 · 23 min
Purple Group goes all-in on AI | US 10-year at 4.63% is a crisis
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.
#685
July 7 · 21 min
Defence Stocks and the Replacement Trade | Why Lockheed Martin Wins
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.
June 30 · 23 min
Europe's Biggest Tech IPO: Bending Spoons
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.
#683
June 23 · 20 min
MercadoLibre is Amazon with a bank and it's cheapest in years
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.
June 17 · 23 min
Peace in Our Time | Are We Just Going Back to February?
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.
June 9 · 21 min
Stocks for your Soccer World Cup
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.
June 2 · 20 min
The US consumer has no savings left, should we worry?
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.
May 26 · 20 min
The SpaceX IPO Valuation Reality Check | The Pope on AI
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.
#678
May 19 · 24 min
Bond Yields Are Screaming | Why Isn't Anyone Calling It a Crisis?
Global bond yields are spiking to multi-decade highs across the US, UK and Japan, and Simon Brown argues this looks a lot like the emerging market debt crises markets usually call doom and gloom. He unpacks the Pick n Pay sell-down of Boxer shares, the Eastern Cape floods threatening the citrus crop, and the absurd Cerebras IPO trading at 150 times sales. Plus an update on JustOneLap's institutional-grade research project, results from Calgro M3, WeBuyCars and Astral, the Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2026, and three stocks on the move: British American Tobacco, BHP Group and Clicks. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.
#677
May 12 · 20 min
Boxer's Blinder & The Pick & Pay Valuation That Makes No Sense
Boxer just posted ShopRite-level operating margins — so why is Pick & Pay, which owns 65% of it, trading at an implied negative enterprise value? Simon Brown unpacks the R10bn valuation paradox and whether it's a genuine opportunity. He also walks through his new AI-powered research workflow, using Claude and ChatGPT to produce and fact-check full initiating coverage reports on Balwin Properties and Raubex. Plus: gold miners Goldfields and AngloGold Ashanti on costs, Meta at its cheapest forward PE since 2022, and Open Router token data that shows xAI running a distant fourth behind Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.
May 5 · 20 min
Hyperscaler Results, Berkshire's Cash Pile and Fuel Pain
Hyperscaler results from Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet produced numbers that almost don't seem real — combined remaining performance obligations of $1.46 trillion and Q1 capex of $112 billion. Simon unpacks where that money is going, why copper is the quiet beneficiary, and which JSE stocks give exposure. Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $380 billion in cash, roughly 38% of its market cap — a meaningful drag while US markets sit at highs. The memory makers — Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron — are choosing pricing power over capacity, with SK Hynix on a forward PE of 4.5. Closer to home, the fuel price hike lands tomorrow with Brent back at $114, putting fragile consumer stocks under pressure. Plus an update on using AI for institutional-grade research and the upcoming JustOneLap events. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.
#675
April 21 · 23 min
Tim Cook Out, Tariff Refunds In, Markets Back At Highs
US markets hit all-time highs this week even as $166 billion in Trump tariff refunds start processing — a windfall for retailers, but consumers who paid inflated prices at the till won't see a cent back. Tim Cook is stepping down at Apple with John Ternus taking over, Amazon is spending $11.57 billion to buy Globalstar and build a Starlink rival, and Netflix delivered Q1 results with a $2.8 billion Warner break fee buried in the numbers. Simon also breaks down the Fed Chair nomination battle, why market recoveries are getting faster, and the sixth anniversary of the day WTI oil went negative. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.
#674
April 14 · 21 min
The Hormuz "Blockade" Has Fine Print | So Does the SA Fuel Crisis
US results season opens with Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson both beating expectations — but the more interesting story is what those results don't show yet: the full impact of Middle East conflict and Trump's drug pricing pressure. Simon also unpacks South Africa's looming fuel crisis and makes the economic case for working from home, a new 100% offshore ETF listing on the JSE from ETFSA, and an ASP Isotopes update for those holding a speculative position. FNB's FCA-mandated R11.9bn provision for undisclosed UK vehicle finance commissions gets a full breakdown, as does the nuanced reality of the Straits of Hormuz "blockade" — it has T's and C's. Plus a long-overdue Bitcoin check-in. WorldWideMarkets is part of JustOneLap.com.

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