We start this week with a simple question: can our markets continue at their current record highs?
According to my data, we have had ten consecutive record closing highs for the JSE All Share and the JSE Top 40.
I’ve tried to check and find out if that has ever happened before, but, as far as I can tell – assisted by some AI – the answer is no.
It’s a remarkable run, driven by falling inflation, lower interest rates and strong precious metals prices – gold and platinum. And of course, once a market starts setting records, momentum tends to feed on itself. Don’t forget that we have a measure of political stability, which also helps.
Among the risks are persistent low economic growth, high unemployment, weak domestic demand, the potential for political instability to reappear and what the experts call ‘valuation stretch’. That’s when a stock’s price becomes so high that it can’t deliver the returns needed to meet investors’ expectations.
We’ll have a couple of pointers later this week with the FNB/BER third-quarter consumer confidence index and then the Reserve Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin.
For the record, the All Share on Friday evening closed just above 106,100 – the Top 40 just over 98,700.
FRESH RECORDS ALSO ON WALL STREET
Further afield on Friday evening, London’s FTSE was down a tenth of a per cent, but on Wall Street, the records also continued to tumble.
The Dow was up 0.4% – the S&P 500 up 0.5% and the Nasdaq up 0.7% – all record highs.
Tokyo this morning is up 1.5% – Hong Kong down 0.9% – Sydney up 0.4%.
The US dollar has firmed to $1.17 to the euro, the rand – R17.36 to the dollar, R20.37 to the euro and R23.37 to sterling.
Gold – $3,690, platinum $1,1405, Bitcoin – $114,486 and Brent Crude oil – just over $667 per barrel.
200th ANNIVERSARY OF RAIL TRANSPORT
This coming Saturday will mark one of the most important milestones in the history of trade and business.
It’s when, two hundred years ago, the very first train ran, carrying 450 passengers, but on a line built to haul coal, between the northern English towns of Darlington and Stockton.
It went along at about 24 kilometres an hour. It was an immediate success, eventually spawning millions of kilometres of track and tens of thousands of companies, including our own South African Railways and Harbours, which we know today as Transnet.
Just as with any innovation, it also had to put up with sometimes violent opposition, with farmers worried that the railway would supplant horse-drawn transport and shut off the market for oats.
