THE WORST SHOULD BE OVER
By Matthew Hill
The first quarter of 2009 showed just how vulnerable the diamond sector is to the recessionary environment. The world's biggest rough diamond producer, De Beers, found itself sliding to a pretax loss of R153m, while its gearing (debt ratio) jum...

PUTTING OUT THE RUBBISH
By Stephen Cranston
It is probably a good time to have an "unfortunate mishap". This is the term used by Absa finance director Jacques Schindehütte to describe the R788m impairment on the bank's catastrophic adventure into single stock futures. It is as w...

LOOKING BRIGHTER
By Matthew Hill
After three quarters of crumpling steel demand that forced it into losses, ArcelorMittal SA (Amsa) could return to profitability in the third quarter of 2009. This is dependent on the economy stabilising in the second half and the rand not streng...

THE EAGLE CRASH LANDS
By Stephen Cranston
Absa's results look good in comparison to many of its sister companies in the Barclays Group. The 8% increase in the Barclays' pre tax profit to £3bn was almost entirely attributable to Barclays Capital, which doubled its pre tax profit ...

BATTLE ON ALL FRONTS
By Stephen Cranston
The theory that there are already green shoots in the insurance market has been disproved by the latest Mutual & Federal results. Its underwriting loss in the six months to June (premiums minus claims and costs) was R96m, equivalent to...

RUGBY AND SUNNY SKIES
By Larry Claasen
If the people running listed airlines 1Time and Comair were not rugby fans, the y are now. The touring fans of the British & Irish Lions rugby team boosted passenger volumes for June and, along with a lower rand/oil fuel price, were...

SWEET OPPORTUNITIES
By Sasha Planting
The structural changes in the global sugar industry, the looming deficit in sugar production and rising interest in African opportunities are coming together to raise investor interest in SA's biggest sugar companies, Tongaat Hulett and Illovo Suga...

FINE PAPER LOSES ITS SHINE
By Andrew McNulty
Sappi is willing to close more of its fine paper capacity in Europe if market conditions and product prices do not improve over the remainder of this year. After its acquisition last year of Finnish rival M-Real's graphics paper bus...

SATELLITE SELLS
By Larry Claasen
The board of Ellies should send a bottle of bubbly, at least, to its counterparts at pay-TV station MultiChoice. The electronic goods manufacturer's earnings for the year to end-April were boosted in part by sales of MultiChoice satell...

CRISIS WATCH
By Duncan McLeod
Is the IT sector weathering the global economic crisis better than other industries? Signs are that technology companies could emerge from the crisis in better shape than companies in many other industries. The recession is not prov...

THE UGLY DUCKLING
By Larry Claasen
MIX TELEMATICS 1. Cash positive 2. Revenue up 3. Share ignored 4. Dividend paid 5. Profitable ==l...

DIAMONDS & DOGS
Jamie Carr's picks of the week
Diamond BAT If you were looking for attributes that would help a company ride its way through a recession without undue distress, having a customer base that is profoundly addicted to your product would be fairly high up the list. When times...

INVESTOR'S NOTEBOOK
By Stephen Cranston
One of the staple scenes in the current crop of crime dramas such as CSI Miami takes place at a prom night or a homecoming. I am not quite sure what these are. I was brought up to think that a prom night was a concert at the Royal Alb...

RESOURCES DRIVE
By Garth Mackenzie, www.traderscorner.co.za
The strong run that we have seen on the JSE has been le d by financial and industrial shares, with resources lagging. Though the financial and industrial indices broke their bear trends in May, the resources index has been languishing....