News flash Picking the next Apple

Picking the next Apple

The Big Five in African game animals has remained unchanged since the term was first coined—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and African buffalo. By contrast, the big five stocks on the S&P 500 have changed dramatically over the past 20 years as the exponential growth of the technology industry has eclipsed capital-intensive industries such as oil…

News flash Governments’ red ink

Governments’ red ink

Governments around the world racked up a record $92 trillion in public debt by the end of 2022, with 3.3 billion people living in countries where interest payments are greater than their expenditure on health or education. To put it simply, many governments around the world would be declared insolvent if they were publicly traded…

News flash The mug’s game

The mug’s game

Forecasts that economists, equities analysts, central banks, multilateral institutions, and diviners make about markets and economies have a tendency to cloud over in retrospect. Looking back at the predictions of some major organisations and publications made at the onset of 2023 compared to the actual outcomes year to date, confirms these outlooks are as unreliable…

News flash Greater fool theory

Greater fool theory

Although equity markets have always been subject to equally irrational bouts of exuberance and despair, we appear to be living through especially volatile times. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns, wider participation of amateur day traders in markets has certainly added even more unpredictability to the mix. As we saw during the meme stock craze of 2021—when…

News flash Reigniting China’s economy

Reigniting China’s economy

Like every economy around the world, China experienced a severe downturn amid the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Unlike most other big countries, China pursued hard lockdowns well into 2022 and failed to benefit from a surge in post-pandemic consumer spending. Along with harsh, inconsistent regulation of sectors like tech, this has caused China’s economy to…

News flash Not just another BRIC in the wall

Not just another BRIC in the wall

Ever since Goldman Sachs coined the BRIC acronym in 2001 (at that time, it excluded South Africa), its members have aspired to shape the club into a counterweight against Western hegemony. That aspiration took a step forward this week with the news from the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg that Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt…