BizNews Radio

In today’s episode, Piet le Roux discusses "state-proofing" South Africa and urges a shift in United States foreign policy. David Shapiro unpacks Covid-19's lasting scars on global markets and the Federal Reserve's recent inflation struggles. We also explore how the investment industry uses Rube Goldberg-like complexity to generate revenue rather than solve uncertainty. Finally, catch up on Wall Street’s rally, Nvidia's earnings, and plunging retail stocks.

David Shapiro has watched the market from a JSE trading floor since 1972, through every crisis from the Asian meltdown to the pandemic. At BNC#9 he makes the case that a single 2022 invention quietly kept the global economy afloat despite punishingly high interest rates, and explains why the new Fed chair's own words about inflation are more revealing than they sound. He also names the industries already fading out of relevance, and where he's looking for the next decade of returns.

In today's BizNews Daybreak, Helen Zille discusses the tough reality of politics and addresses the Mark Burke controversy. Old Mutual's Meryl Pick explains why central banks are hoarding gold to anchor credibility. Africa Bitcoin Corporation CEO Warren Wheatly highlights Bitcoin's decreasing volatility and absolute scarcity. Finally, get the latest US market wrap, including Trump's Canadian auto tariffs and upcoming Fed news.

Bitcoin has gone quiet, and Warren Wheatley says that's the point. While the price sits well off its highs, the CEO of Africa Bitcoin Corporation says the real story is happening underneath: banks, insurers and even governments building the plumbing that turns Bitcoin into collateral. Wheatley explains how his own company used exactly that mechanism to borrow at 3% offshore and lend to African SMEs at a fraction of what other non-bank lenders charge, and why he thinks any business ignoring this shift is about to fall behind.

Central banks aren't buying gold to make money. They're buying it because they no longer fully trust the system the rest of us take for granted. Old Mutual's Meryl Pick takes BNC#9 back to a hotel in New Hampshire in 1944, to the deal that made the dollar the centre of the financial universe, and asks what happens if that deal is quietly coming apart. Along the way: why one in four ounces of newly mined gold now ends up in a central bank vault, why India has brought most of its gold home, and why she believes your portfolio needs more gold than it did for most of the last 40 years, whether or not you've already missed the rally.