Dear Members,

The delivery of the Soccer balls is now complete.  It was an incredible experience to see the little faces light up and note the fun and games that started immediately. I have enclosed pictures of 3 of the 25 schools we gave balls to for you to see. Thanks to Avis Van Rental for giving us the use of a bakkie to do the deliveries, it made life so much easier for me.

Our dam level is 19.5% today; we had 3, 5 mm of rain last night.

PEOPLE LIKE TO DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE THEY LIKE AND TRUST.

It’s simpler to do business with someone you know than a complete stranger.  And for this reason alone, networking offers a real opportunity in business. 

While you may feel uncomfortable about formalized networking sessions, they offer access to other business people who may grow to respect and like you, and who will increasingly feel confident in recommending you.

Note: Data at close of previous trading day.

Domestic markets

The JSE all-share index reversed its strong morning gains by close yesterday, with traders offering a host of varying reasons for its demise including profit-taking, negative Automatic Data Processing (ADP) data, and concerns over the state of Hungary and its impact on emerging markets. The local bourse closed 0,41 per cent weaker, after having opened 1,50 per cent stronger yesterday morning. The gold and platinum indices fell by 0,17 per cent and 0,86 per cent respectively. The banks index lost 1,84 per cent, the financials index was down by 0,74 per cent and the industrials index was 0,74 per cent weaker. Conversely, the resources index gained 0,08 per cent.

The rand remained range-bound yesterday and is currently trading at R7,66 per US dollar, at R9,37 per euro, and at R11,25 per pound sterling. South African bonds remained firm but were off the session's best levels in late trade yesterday as some profit-taking crept into the market.

Commodities

Gold ended lower as some investors anticipated a possible jump in the US payrolls data (to be released today) to follow other healthy economic reports this week, curbing the need for safe-haven assets. Spot gold is currently trading at US$1 203/oz.

Oil prices were higher after a US government oil inventory report showed that crude oil and gasoline stocks fell more-than-expected. Brent crude oil is currently trading at US$75,12/barrel. 

SACCI

In spite of recent speculation, we remain unconvinced of changes to SA’s FX policy.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, a London-based analyst yesterday is quoted as saying that a change to South Africa’s foreign exchange policy was increasingly likely in the second half of the year. This was supposedly driven after private meetings held with the SARB Governor and other officials last week. Some of the avenues mentioned to curb the strength of the currency included the Bank selling dollar options. While the selling of USD options may well be the cheapest method of intervening in foreign exchange markets for the SARB, we find little reason to believe that the SARB will change their current policy stance.
The SARB has a policy to intervene where necessary and continues to warn over the cost implications, which limit the extent to which it can intervene. Public comments by senior Bank officials of late support this point. The SARB, in our view, favours maintaining a flexible, market-determined exchange rate. It is also probably concerned over the negative impact large foreign exchange intervention (to drive a weaker ZAR) could have on its inflation-targeting credentials. That said, both the SARB and National Treasury want to achieve lower levels of rand volatility – a point which Governor Marcus mentioned at the recent Pretoria monetary policy forum as being an extremely difficult task to achieve.

ABSA

Chamber Greetings,

Colleen Till

Manager

Diepkloof Primary

Hibernia Primary

Parkdene Senior School