We have managed to get through the first month of 2025 with mostly green on our investment screens. In South Africa we see shares up around 2% for the month and interest rates have come down 0.25% to 7.50%. SA inflation is around 3% with Gold up around 6.5% year to date. The US also got some upside on their equities with the S&P500 up around 3% for January. We did see some jitters going through the technology sector in the US when a Chinese company called DeepSeek unveiled a new AI large language model (LLM) that can do the same as the current US LLMs for a fraction of the cost.
On the political side we see things moving fast in the US, with Donald Trump following through on his campaign promises of deporting illegal immigrants, freezing federal expenditure and terminating all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices in the federal government.
In South Africa we see Cyril Ramaphosa signing into law the new Expropriation Bill. This was done against the wishes of other members of the GNU but we all knew this was coming. Farmers are running for the hills with a personal friend selling her farm on Friday – to a group of Arabs who are buying up the Karoo. They intend to raise cattle and export 100% to Saudi, using only expat labour. This is a lose-lose for South Africans.
For those of you who are thinking of emigrating, don’t bother. It is just too expensive. SA is a wonderful place to live as long as you can detach yourself from goods and services provided by the government. As Paul from Vestact mentioned in their blog on Friday: pay for the things you can, such as private healthcare, schooling, solar, security; drill a borehole; use your own 4×4 transportation; and the most important of all, stay away from investing in the biggest state asset of all, the rand!
