Devon, Coterra shareholders approve all-stock merger
Market Scorecard
Disappointingly, US stocks fell again yesterday, marking the fourth straight day of losses. The final performance numbers from August were not great, with the S&P 500 down 4.2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 4.6% in the red. Historically, the month of September has often been poor for returns, but hopefully things will be different this time.
In company news, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) tumbled 6.6% on an announcement that the US government wants to limit artificial intelligence chip sales to Russia and China. That could dent sales by as much as $400 million. Elsewhere, a group of woke Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) employees are protesting a $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal in Israel.
In short, the JSE All-share was down 0.95%, the S&P 500 slid 0.75%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.56%.
One Thing, From Paul
I live in South Africa, and plan to stay here forever, so I keep a close eye on local politics. I've been doing that since the 1970s and it's been a rocky road. Apartheid was a crime against humanity, and we were all thrilled to see the end of race-based oppression.
Since 1994 the country has been ruled by the ANC, which now seems to have run out of ideas. Economic growth has stagnated, but they remain committed to state-dominated economic interventionism and cadre deployment. Corruption is endemic.
Tim Cohen wrote a very useful overview of the problems we face: Five reasons South Africa is failing economically.
His first point is that in the next national election in 2024 the ANC will probably fall below 50% of the total vote. He notes that the ANC may well cut a deal with the EFF to stay in power, resulting in the full-blown adoption of Radical Economic Transformation agendas. I'm dismayed to see that the EFF leadership is warming to this idea too.
The radical left in this country style themselves as "pro-poor". As Henry Louis Mencken said, "the urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve".
Byron's Beats
Datacenters are big business and expansion is happening fast. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) have just opened a new global datacenter region in Qatar giving organisations in the Middle East access to hundreds of scalable cloud services.
This will make Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 the leader in all cloud services in the region. It takes a big investment but once you are there, you become entrenched.
Take a look at AWS in South Africa as a good example. They have a physical data centre in Cape Town which makes them an obvious choice for hosting digital platforms in South Africa. That's the route Vestact went with our database.
These are exciting times for cloud businesses, let the turf wars continue.
Bright's Banter
Main Street Advisors, NBA superstar Lebron James and the New York Yankees are taking minority stakes in the Italian soccer club AC Milan. This partnership brings some of the most prominent properties in the world of sports together. The deal was structured by RedBird Capital, a firm run by Gerry Cardinale.
The Serie A football franchise will change hands for a cool $1.3 billion and the seller is hedge fund Elliot Management. Currently, AC Milan is the 14th most valuable soccer team in the world.
MLB's Yankees already have soccer interests as part owners of New York City FC, the Major League Soccer franchise. Manchester City also has a stake. That club plays its home games in the epic Yankee Stadium. According to the latest financials, AC Milan has generated revenue of $246 million, but racked up a net loss of $98 million.
Signing Off
Asian markets are not looking so hot this morning. We regret to report that a massive Covid-related lockdown has just been announced in the Chinese metropolis of Chengdu, home to 21 million people. Will this ever end?
US equity futures are down 1% at this point, which is not encouraging. The Rand is trading at around R17.16 to the US Dollar.
Here in the southern hemisphere it's Spring Day and the birds are chirping outside of our windows. On we go.