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Hyper Capex Spending | Junior Miner Pain

Release Date: 02/10/2026

Pick n Pay has stopped bleeding. But has it started healing?

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

Pick n Pay has stopped bleeding customers, but it hasn't started healing. Simon Brown goes deep on the retailer's 20-week trading update, where group turnover rose 2.7% while core Pick n Pay SA supermarkets went backwards. He unpacks the so-called negative stub — a R14 billion market cap against an R18.8 billion stake in Boxer plus cash — and explains why capital gains tax makes those "free" 1,538 stores a lot less free. He also looks at the Section 189A labour consultation covering 22,000 employees, the base rates on retail turnarounds globally, and why Shoprite's ability to absorb...

Mr Price and Clicks. End of an Era, or an Entry Point?

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

Mr Price and Clicks have both been hammered, and on a chart they look like the same trade. They are not. Simon Brown holds both and spends this episode pulling the two businesses apart to work out which one he actually wants to own. Clicks is on its cheapest P/E in a decade but is losing share in the high-margin categories that pay the bills, with Dis-Chem, Checkers Sixty60, SPAR Health and Woolworths all circling. Mr Price is on 12.2 times earnings with a 5.3% dividend yield and a German acquisition the market has already priced as a failure. Also covered: US earnings season running at 47%...

Finding quality JSE dividends | Alphabet profits booms, stock falls

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

Vodacom has cut its dividend payout ratio from 75% to 65%, which pushes one of the JSE's dependable income names down the list. Simon Brown runs the Top 40 and the mid-cap screen to find where quality local yield actually sits, and shows how Growthpoint, Nedbank, Coronation and Standard Bank can be combined into a home-built income portfolio yielding roughly seven and a half to eight percent, growing ahead of inflation. He also unpacks Alphabet's record quarter, where two thirds of the profit was unrealised paper gains and free cash flow turned negative for the first time on record, and asks...

Finding an edge in prediction markets | Netflix, market hate is an opportunity?

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

Can you find a real edge in prediction markets? Simon hunts the arbitrage — and calls Netflix cheap. In this week's WorldWideMarkets: • 🎲 Prediction markets: where's the edge, and where's the scam? • 🇧🇷 The Brazil election "two-horse arbitrage" explained • 📈 Betting SA's 2026 inflation print with a Bayesian model • 🎬 Netflix halved — Simon says it's now cheap • 📊 Stocks on the move: Bid Corp, Mr Price, OUTsurance, Vodacom, Absa, Gold Fields CHAPTERS: 0:00 Introduction 1:20 Prediction markets: where's the edge? 4:35 The Brazil election arbitrage 8:05 Betting SA...

Purple Group goes all-in on AI | US 10-year at 4.63% is a crisis

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

A month after the year's most hyped listing, nearly everyone who bought SpaceX and held is underwater — and with the 180-day lock-up now gone, Simon Brown explains why insider selling is only getting started. He then tours the week's biggest moves: Apple's copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and what it means for hardware and an IPO, Purple Group buying Telescope AI to strengthen EasyEquities, oil climbing back into the 80s as Middle East peace talks stall, De Beers closing its last South African mine, and Sappi languishing at 1998 levels. He closes on a US 10-year yield near 4.6% and the...

Defence Stocks and the Replacement Trade | Why Lockheed Martin Wins

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

Wars burn hardware, and rebuilding it takes years. This week Simon Brown works through the defence sector as a replacement thesis — the US fired roughly half its THAAD interceptor stockpile in twelve days against Iran — and settles on Lockheed Martin as his pick, with RTX as a second choice. He weighs the faster-growing but pricier European names (Leonardo, Thales, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall), runs through the main defence ETF options, and flags the risks: budgets are politics, and forward orders still have to convert. Also covered: a post-IPO look at Bending Spoons, SK Hynix's planned $28bn...

Europe's Biggest Tech IPO: Bending Spoons

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

This week's WorldWideMarkets is a tour of cheap stocks that each come with a question mark. Simon Brown looks at Microsoft, where a forward PE of around 20 against a mean of 33 makes it look inexpensive — except free cash flow has slipped back to 2021 levels as AI and data-centre capex ramps. He revisits Afrimat, a high-quality cyclical now trading near 10-year lows, and digs into Bending Spoons, the Italian roll-up of legacy tech brands like Evernote, WeTransfer and AOL heading to the NASDAQ under code BSP. He also covers Naspers' latest results, the discount embedded in the...

MercadoLibre is Amazon with a bank and it's cheapest in years

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

MercadoLibre is down 40% for the year, and Simon Brown argues the market is mispricing it as a retailer while ignoring the fintech engine — Mercado Pago — that is becoming Latin America's biggest digital bank. Total payment volume now exceeds gross merchandise volume, even as management deliberately halves operating margins to grab market share. This week also marks the death of former Fed chair Alan Greenspan at 100, a look at SpaceX's volatile listing that still sits above its IPO price, South African inflation cooling to 4.5% with petrol relief on the way, the first FOMC meeting with...

Peace in Our Time | Are We Just Going Back to February?

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

A US–Iran cessation of hostilities, due to be signed Friday, has collapsed the oil price, firmed the rand back toward 16.00 and let gold hold key support — and Simon Brown argues markets are heading back to where they sat in late February, just with fewer rate cuts on the table. This episode also unpacks the most hyped IPO in history opening softer than expected, South African inflation surprising lower at 4.5% with chunky petrol and diesel cuts due in July, a no-change FOMC meeting, and a busy stocks-on-the-move list. Topics: US–Iran ceasefire, oil, rand, gold, emerging markets, SA...

Stocks for your Soccer World Cup

WorldWide Markets with Simon Brown

The World Cup kicks off Thursday — so which stocks actually win? Simon Brown ran a data-driven hunt and the answer is counter-intuitive: skip the obvious bets. His own scrape of stadium-adjacent hotels found accommodation available everywhere, with 84 of 104 games unsold, so hoteliers have no pricing power and the retail uplift is marginal. The real edge sits with the kit makers — Adidas and Nike both screen cheap against analyst targets — and the betting operators, Sun International and NYSE-listed Super Group. He also looks at JSE newcomer Canal+ and the free-streaming threat from...

More Episodes

🎙️ Worldwide Markets – Episode 665

📅 11 February | 🎧 Recorded Tuesday around lunchtime
💼 Powered by Standard Bank Global Markets & Shyft

🌍 This week in markets

Massive hyperscaler CapEx is back in focus 💰🏗️
Markets appear calmer – the worst of the recent collapse may be behind us 😮‍💨
Bitcoin mining costs now around $70,000, putting pressure on miners ⛏️₿
A deep dive into junior miners – why so many of them struggle ⚒️📉

🏗️ Hyperscalers go full throttle

2025 CapEx spend near $380bn, well above expectations
2026 estimates push towards $660bn when Oracle is included
The hyperscalers:
- Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon ☁️
The “shovel sellers”:
- Nvidia*, ASML*, TSMC 🧑‍🏭🪓
Key shift: these businesses are no longer asset-light
Warning signs emerge as some stocks trade below their 200-day moving averages ⚠️📉

“Nothing good happens below the 200-day.”

📊 Stocks & charts

Microsoft & Meta showing the most technical stress
Nvidia* and ASML* still look healthy on the charts ✅
Apple largely staying out of the AI CapEx frenzy 🍏
1nvest ETF5IT*: profits taken previously, now watching closely 👀

🤖 Software shock & AI disruption

Growing fear around software-as-a-service under pressure
New AI tools like Claude and “vibe coding” spooking SaaS names 💻😬
Reality check:
- Niche software may struggle
- Enterprise platforms (e.g. Salesforce-type businesses) are harder to replace

🪙 Bitcoin, gold & currencies

Bitcoin dipped below $60,000, now rebounded to mid-$60k
Mining economics tight at current prices ⚠️
Gold back above $5,000, refusing to consolidate 🥇🔥
Ongoing dollar weakness and rand strength 💵⬇️ 🇿🇦⬆️

🌐 The debasement trade

Signs of slow de-dollarisation and capital moving out of US Treasuries
China reportedly limiting (not stopping) US bond buying 🇨🇳📉
Key takeaway:
- This is a multi-decade trend, not a short-term trade 🐢
Governments reduce debt via:
- Inflation
- Currency weakness

🖥️ A possible opportunity: servers

Hyperscalers replacing ageing chips & servers faster than expected
Alphabet spending up to $185bn, with ~⅓ just on replacement 🔁
Question raised: Is Dell a quiet AI beneficiary? 🖥️📦
- Forward PE near 10
- Analysts broadly constructive

⚒️ Junior miners: why it’s so hard

Spotlight on Copper 360, Orion, ASP Isotopes*
The commodity may be in the ground – but:
- Extraction is complex
- Capital is hard to raise
- Logistics, infrastructure & communities matter 🚧
Junior mining = high risk by design 🎢
Even experienced operators fail

📢 Events & deadlines

Power Hour – 19 February
🕠 17:30 | 💻 Webinar or 🏢 Rosebank
- Tax-free investing beyond TFSA
- ETFs, income strategies & Reg 28
Important reminder ⏰
- Many providers have early contribution deadlines
- Don’t leave Reg 28 or TFSA top-ups to the last minute

👉 More info: justonelap.com/events