WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

🎙️ Worldwide Markets – Episode 663
📅 28 January | Recorded late Tuesday afternoon
Host: Simon Brown
Powered by: Standard Bank Global Markets & Shyft – the global money app for travel, shopping, payments & investing 🌍💳
This week a quick look at gold and the Rand, both did what was expected over the year in the first month.
Then picks for the Cristal Challenge 2026 and the Moneyweb Investor Challenge.
Three bankers that go into each challenge. Then four floaters, two per each challenge to mix it up a bit.
Best of luck to all who enter :)
Simon Brown
* I hold ungeared positions.
All charts by KoyFin | Get 10% off your order

For the thirteenth year in a row Keith McLachlan, Marc Ashton and Simon Brown kick off the new year with a predictions show.
First they check in and mark what they said last year. Then they each offer three predictions for the year ahead and a view on the Top40 and Rand/
Find last years show here.

🌍 Worldwide Markets — Episode 660
🎙️ The Best and Worst of the JSE in 2025
📅 10 December 2025
🎧 Final episode of the year — back 14 January 2026
💼 Powered by Standard Bank Global Markets & Shyft
🏁 Opening Thoughts
Last podcast of 2025! 🎉

A huge thank-you to listeners, watchers and everyone who engaged across the year 🙏

A wild year for markets, but a great year for returns 📈

Wishing everyone a restful and safe festive break ✈️🌞

🎥 Power Hour Recap — Position Your Portfolio for 2026
📌 Highlights included:
🔙 Looking back at 2025's predictions (keeping it honest!)

🤖 The state of AI: spotting bubbles, when to worry, triggers to watch

💰 Gold & commodities outlook

🛍️ Local retail — opportunities & risks

🚀 IPO environment

🧭 Positioning for 2026

Watch here.
🥇 Best Performers of the JSE in 2025
🪙 1. Precious Metals: The Dominant Theme of 2025
Gold & PGM miners absolutely owned the market this year. If you weren't in them… your portfolio lagged the benchmark.
Top returns (total return to 8 Dec):
🥇 Sibanye-Stillwater* — +258% 🤯

🥈 AngloGold Ashanti* — ~+240%

🥉 Northam — +214%

🏅 Gold Fields — +195%

Implats — +153%

Thungela / Valterra / others — 130–140% range

Harmony — +119%

📌 Why the boom?
Gold price exploded early in the year 🌕

Safe-haven flows amid tariff drama, budgets, DeepSeek shock

Strong production + not-yet-expensive valuations

💬 Simon: Still bullish on gold miners — not expecting another double, but valuations remain attractive if gold holds current levels.
🎓 2. Education Sector Winners
🎓 Stadio — +89%

🧑‍🏫 Killed it with distance learning demand and tertiary approvals

📉 Curo delisted; ADvTech* solid with +20%

🟣 3. Purple Group* & EasyEquities
+87% 🚀

Bull markets = busy brokers

Results were slightly soft in H2 (bonuses cycle), but long-term story intact

📡 4. Telcos Roar Back (From a Very Low Base)
📱 MTN — +76%

🔵 Blue Label — +73% (Cell C momentum)

🔌 IOCA — +65%

☎️ Telkom — +60%

🟥 Vodacom — +38%

📌 Simon sold MTN a decade ago during the Nigerian fine panic — and never re-entered. Lesson: When it's time to panic, panic fast.
💰 5. Standout Financials & Miscellaneous
🟪 Sygnia — +72%

💻 Datatec — +70% (surprise performer)

🍗 Astral — +49% (thanks, cheaper maize!)

🐓 Rainbow Chicken — +43%

🏢 Growthpoint — +48% (big dividends)

🧱 Property sector broadly strong again: Redefine, Octodec, etc.

🏦 PSG Financial Services — +40%

💼 Capitec — +29%

🏦 Standard Bank — +31% — notably ahead of Capitec

🟧 Naspers — +25% (Simon sees opportunity post-share split)

🛢️ Sasol — +25% (still not a favourite)

🛒 6. Retail: The Year's Big Disappointment
🛋️ Lewis — +22% (but deep down the list)

🥩 Spur — +15%

🍗 Famous Brands — –16%

🛒 Shoprite* — –4.6% (value emerging)

🛍️ Pick n Pay — –17% (slow turnaround)

👗 Mr Price* — –26% (Simon still sees value)

👟 Pepkor — weak, but potential for recovery

🔻 Worst Performers of the JSE in 2025
💥 Biggest Losers
🚨 Nutun / Transaction Capital legacy — –52%

👗 Foschini* (TFG) — –50%

📄 Sappi — –46% (ongoing structural challenges)

🧱 Afrimat — –43% (Lafarge integration still tough; Simon sees opportunity)

💉 Aspen — –43% (lost sterile facility contract; utilization still weak)

🔧 Cashbuild — –37% (SA consumers tapped out)

📺 eMedia — heavy selling post-unbundling

🛒 Retailers Under Pressure
🥀 Spar — –28% (competition from Boxer + Shoprite* + Pick n Pay)

👖 Mr Price* — –26%

🍔 Famous Brands — –16%

🍩 Life Healthcare, Renergen*, ArcelorMittal SA — all struggling

📉 Macro, Risks & 2026 Outlook
🌱 Green Shoots in South Africa
Early signs of improvement appearing

Fragile but real: improving volumes, some recovery in SA Inc, stabilising consumer pockets

REITs & banks starting from low valuations

⚠️ Risks
Moody's kept SA unchanged; risks tilt to the downside

A global AI bubble burst would hit emerging markets hard

External shocks more dangerous than local issues

📈 Global Watch: The Mag 7 & Market Signals
Bubble warning model: Two giants below the 200-day MA

Meta dipped back below — but still only one of the seven triggering

Nvidia chart still healthy

Gold still bullish

Oil looks very weak

🤝 Closing the Year
Simon wraps 2025 with gratitude and optimism:
✨ "It's been a year — a wild one — but at least we got returns."

❄️ Be safe this festive season

🙌 Special thanks to those working through December (retail, hospitality, logistics)

🎙️ Back 14 January 2026 with the annual predictions show featuring Keith McLachlan & Marc Ashton — and, as always, they'll mark themselves before forecasting ahead.

🔗 Powered By
🏦 Standard Bank Global Markets
🌍 Shyft – the global money app
💸 Cheapest Forex rates, anywhere, anytime
Simon Brown
* I hold ungeared positions.
All charts by KoyFin | Get 10% off your order

Worldwide Markets – Episode 659 Show Notes
"It's Been a Year… But Markets Loved It"
📆 3 December 2025
🎙️ Host: Simon Brown
🏦 Powered by Standard Bank Global Markets & Shyft — the global money app.
🌍 Opening: A Wild Year That Somehow Ended Beautifully
Despite chaos from January to April — tariffs, collapsing markets, surging yields, rand at 19.90 — markets still delivered a stellar year.

If you had gone on holiday 1 Jan and checked your portfolio today, you'd think it was a boring year… but Yowza! It was anything but.

Reminder: Wall Street ≠ Main Street — markets often move ahead of economic reality.

🤖 AI Chaos in January: DeepSeek Shakes the Market
Chinese model DeepSeek stunned the AI world, training for ~$6m vs OpenAI's multi-billion dollar spend.

Raised questions: cheaper API access, open-source surge, China's rapid AI emergence.

Set the tone for a year of AI leapfrogging between global players.

🇺🇸 The Trump Factor: Tariffs Everywhere
Trump sworn in (20 Jan) → tariffs on Mexico & Canada within days.

Tore up the post-WW2 geopolitical playbook → raised questions of US reliability going forward.

Triggered global uncertainty but markets... shrugged.

🇿🇦 Local Madness: The Three Budget Attempts
SA tried three times to get a budget passed.

Rand collapses into "Liberation Tariff Day", hits 19.90 → quickly followed by "90 deals in 90 days" promises.

Only three months in and the year was already unhinged.

📉 April Market Meltdown… Followed by a Stunning Recovery
US 10-yr at 4.5%, US equities down 15%, local markets collapsing, bonds selling off.

By December → Nikkei near highs, Europe at highs, JSE powered by gold, US pushed by the Mag 7.

Markets looked glorious by year-end, despite everything.

🎙️ Upcoming: Best-Performing JSE Stocks of 2025
Spoiler: Gold miners will dominate.

Full breakdown coming next week in the final show of 2025.

🖼️ NanoBanana & Gemini: AI Image Tools Blow Simon's Mind
Simon has used DALL·E heavily for two years — but:
❌ slow

❌ bad at text

❌ struggles with edits


NanoBanana + Gemini 3:
⚡ insanely fast

🔠 perfect text edits

🎨 clean output


Alphabet has:
💰 massive free cash flow

🌐 billions of users

📢 advertising infrastructure


→ Giving them a potential edge in AI monetisation (for now).

📈 AI Stock Bubble: Is It Popping?
Nvidia chart not bearish — holding support around 165–166 and bouncing.

Mag 7 vs 200-day moving average:
⬇️ Only Meta is below.

Microsoft, Amazon still comfortably above.


Conclusion:
🤯 We are in a bubble… but it's not bursting yet.

More insights coming in the Power Hour.


[caption id="attachment_55081" align="aligncenter" width="849"] Nvidia weekly chart | 01 December 2025[/caption]
🪙 Bitcoin: The Chart Looks Ugly
Trump is the most pro-crypto president ever, but BTC isn't reacting positively.

Peaked at $126k in October → now around $87k.

Breaking support levels:
⚠️ If current zone doesn't hold → sub-$70k likely.


Gold vs Bitcoin comparison:
🥇 Gold behaves like a hedge.

₿ Bitcoin remains a speculative asset, not a store of value or inflation hedge.


[caption id="attachment_55082" align="aligncenter" width="849"] Bitcoin weekly chart | 02 December 2025[/caption]
🇿🇦 South African GDP: Some Bright Spots
Q3 2025 GDP:
📈 +0.5% QoQ

📈 +2.1% YoY

🚧 Gross fixed capital formation +1.6% → first strong rise since Q2 2023.
Means: building → roads, dams, solar, infrastructure — very positive.


🏦 Banks Benefit Most
Reasons:
👍 GDP uptick

⬆️ Credit upgrades

⬇️ Lower expected inflation

⬇️ Lower rates coming

🟩 Off the grey list

Valuations:
Price-to-book: 1.0–1.5×

Yields: high single digits

Winners depend on style:
💸 Deep value → ABSA, Nedbank

⚖️ Balanced → Standard Bank, FNB

🦄 Premium → Capitec (always expensive)


🏢 Shaftesbury (UK REIT): One to Watch
Formerly Capital & Counties.

Own Covent Garden & key West End locations.

Never recovered from Brexit: from £4 → now £1.42.

Fundamentals:
💰 Single-digit PE (~8)

📉 Yield 2.7%

📊 Analyst range: £1.48–£2.10


Not a buy yet — but on the watchlist due to prime assets.

🏘️ SA Property: The Easy Money Is Gone
SA REITs had:
🚀 Huge 2024

📈 Strong 2025


Many now trade around NAV:
Storage, Spear, Vukile → at/near NAV

Octodec → still at discount


Simon prefers 15% discount to NAV before buying.

Markets have closed the gap — valuations now full.

If REITs move to 10–15% premiums, Simon will run.

🔮 Next Week: Final Show of 2025
Full list of best and worst JSE performers of the year.

Small caps that surprised everyone.

Then → back week of 12 Jan with Marc Ashton & Keith McLachlan for the annual predictions episode.

👋 Wrap-Up
A shorter show this week, but packed with market insight, AI breakthroughs, Bitcoin trouble, UK property opportunities, and SA's slow-but-positive GDP recovery.
As always:
💙 Look after yourself.
🤝 And if you can, look after someone else too.
Simon Brown
* I hold ungeared positions.
All charts by KoyFin | Get 10% off your order