PDSNET ARTICLES
The Collapse of the Dollar
The currency of a country is like the shares of a company. If a company is expected to do well and make profits, then its shares will rise and vice versa. The same is true of a currency. If the country’s economy is expected to do well and create strong growth, then its currency will appreciate against the currencies of other countries – and vice versa. The problem is, of course, that because the US dollar (US$) is ...
The Confidential Report - December 2025
America At the time of last month's Confidential Report on the 29th of October 2025, the S&P500 index was at an all-time record high of 6890. We had already warned of the possibility of a correction in our article “Bubble” published the week before on the 27th of October. Over the following month that correction has played out with Wall Street falling 5% and the S&P making a cycle low of 6538 on 20th Novemb...
Gold Fields
For the past month, the US dollar price of gold has once again encountered some resistance – this time at around $4000. Despite this, in our view, the gold price is in a strong upward trend which should continue. One of the major factors is the steady decline in the US dollar value against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, but the main reason for the upward trend in gold is that large international investors and cen...
Top Winning Shares
Last Thursday, the JSE reached a new all-time record high of 114046. This, combined with the fact that the rand went below R17 to the US dollar for the first time since the beginning of 2023 suggests that emerging market investors are increasingly bullish. Consider the chart: The chart shows the effect of Trump’s Liberation Day announcement on 2nd April 2025 and the low point that followed. Since then, the JSE has recove...
Overview - 10th November 2025
Wall Street Two weeks ago we suggested in an article that a stock market bubble was developing in AI and predicted that a significant correction was imminent. We repeated that view in the Confidential Report published on Wednesday, 5-11-25 last week [link]. The S&P500 index is now in the midst of another mini-correction which has already taken it down 2.5%. That is about average for the mini-corrections that we have seen o...
The Confidential Report - November 2025
America Amazon’s strong results caused the share to rise 9.6% on Friday and lifted the S&P500 index as investors celebrated the announcement that its cloud computing unit's revenue grew by 20% in the third quarter. CEO, Andy Jassy said that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is "growing at a pace we haven't seen since 2022" and that there was strong demand for core infrastructure and AI. The company has announced plans to cut...
Bubble
Last Friday the S&P500 reached another new all-time record high, closing at 6791 and reaching a new intra-day record high of 6807. This is obviously an exciting time for private investors, but with each new record high the systematic risk of a bear trend or crash increases. Consider the chart: Investors all over the world are committing rising amounts of capital to AI and in our view, there is a danger of substantial over-...
The PEG Ratio
Since the government of national unity (GNU) came into power in June 2024, there has been a definite improvement in the South African economy. Perhaps the improvement is not as dramatic as some people were expecting, but the progress cannot be denied. Possibly the best indicator of that is the 28% rise in the JSE Banking index which, before the GNU had been moving sideways for the previous two years. Banks are generally not ve...
Rare Earth Elements
Investors worldwide had been of the opinion that Trump’s ability to impact markets was on the decline. His erratic, on-again, off again tariff policies had either disappeared or had been mostly discounted into share prices. His attack on the second largest economy in the world, China, seemed to have been largely resolved, and a meeting with Xi Jinping was planned. After the sharp V-bottom lasting 4 months from February t...
US Shutdown
There has been much in the media recently about the US government shutdown and the fear among investors that it might begin to affect the stock market, depending on how long it lasts. A shutdown occurs when the US government reaches its budget limit and requires a bill to be passed through both Houses to extend the government’s spending limits. Shutdowns typically happen in October because the government’s fiscal y...
The Confidential Report - October 2025
Background and Context Before we get into the detail of this month’s Confidential Report, I thought it would be useful to spend a few minutes considering the big picture of exactly where world markets are generally today, including the JSE. Like all major stock markets around the world, the JSE roughly follows Wall Street and Wall Street is most accurately represented by the S&P500 index, which is an average of the 5...
New Listings
Two new companies, ASP Isotopes and Greencoat Renewables, have recently come to the JSE. Both are developing companies that have recently made losses and have been funding those losses by raising capital and selling assets. They both have substantial “blue sky” potential but also carry substantial investment risk. This is probably truer of ASP Isotopes than Greencoat Renewables. In our view they both represent oppo...
Exponential Growth
The S&P 500 index is important because all the stock markets around the world tend to follow it. If the S&P is in a bull trend then London, Tokyo and the JSE will also be in a bull trend – and vice versa. The S&P500 index began 68 years ago on 4 th March 1957 with an initial value of 43,73. It took nearly 41 years for it to reach 1000 (3rd of February 1998) and another 16 years to get to 2000 (29th of A...
The US Jobs Market
International investors who trade on Wall Street are generally negative about any good news from the economy because it tends to make the monetary policy committee (MPC) more hawkish and less likely to reduce interest rates. The opposite is also true. But there comes a point where bad news is so bad that investors begin to fear that the US economy is heading into a recession. On Friday last week the US Monthly Jobs Report ...
The Confidential Report - September 2025
America Looking at the American economy at the end of August 2025, we see that it is certainly slowing down. Core inflation at 3% remains stubbornly above the Fed’s target of 2% and the shock adjustment to jobs numbers shows that job creation is much lower than expected. Core inflation is affected by housing where inflation remains high at 3,7% for the year or 0,2% month over month. The gains in retail sales have been ea...
Jackson Hole
Once a year in late August central bankers and academics congregate in Jackson Hole to discuss the state of the economy and consider the way forward. Traditionally, the Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank (“the Fed”) addresses the meeting and gives direction to its thinking on monetary policy in the US. This year, the comments of Jerome Powell resulted in the S&P500 index rising 1,5% on the day. The work of a cou...
Choppies
Choppies is a supermarket chain which operates in Botswana, Namibia and Zambia. It is listed both on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE). Notably, the company has resisted the temptation to re-enter the highly competitive and cut-throat retail market in South Africa, having exited that market in 2020 due to sustained losses. Despite this, Choppies is the largest grocery retailer in So...
Gold Resistance
All investments throughout the world can be ranked on a scale from high risk to low risk. As a general rule, in the world of investment, risk and return rise together. In other words, as the risks in an investment increase, so does the return necessary to attract investors. At the one end of the scale there are very low risk investments like US Treasury Bills which offer a very low return but are seen as being very secure - an...
The Confidential Report - August 2025
America The July jobs report shows that only 73 000 jobs were created – well below the average of economists’ predictions of 100 000. But more shocking were the downward revisions made to the job creation figures from earlier months. June 2025 was revised down to just 14 000 from 147 000 and May’s figure was revised down to 19 000 from 125 000. This indicates that the job market ...
Sibanye takes off
We have been writing about Neal Froneman and Sibanye for years now. Beginning in 2013, Froneman assembled the Sibanye group over a period of 7 years, buying up mining operations both in South Africa and America at bargain prices. Initially he bought precious metals producers, but more recently he has been diversifying into base metals like zinc and lithium which are benefiting from the surge in solar power installation worldwi...