Floods. Fires. Other nasty weather. Our country has been battered by natural disasters recently and it's not as though we were a low-risk place before that.
In the insurance business, this is good for premium growth. To borrow liberally from the Goo Goo Dolls and to show my age here: when everything's made to be broken, I just want my insurer to know who I am.
It's not so great for underwriting profits, which vary with the actual claims experience vs. the models that the clever actuaries built. To make it even trickier, insurers invest their reserves and returns can be volatile if markets are all over the place. When investing in insurance businesses, you're carrying exposure to market risk in addition to the risks that are being insured against.
Santam has released an update covering the four months to April 2022. You can get all the details at this link.
On a somewhat lighter note, those of you who have listened to the Magic Markets podcast will be familiar with my partner Mohammed Nalla. We are about to release episode 78 of the free Magic Markets show and we now have more than 30 reports and podcasts in the Premium library, which you can access for just R99/month by subscribing at this link.
The team at EasyEquities asked Mohammed and I to join them on the Easy Does It podcast, hosted by the highly entertaining DJ@Large. We had an absolute blast, sparring over stocks in a great podcast format that allowed us to have even more fun and banter than usual. You can listen to both episodes of this two-part series at this link.
For updates from Tradehold, Fairvest, Labat Africa, Ascendis, BHP, Libstar and others, be sure to read today's edition of Ghost Bites. As you know by now, it's the tastiest way to get up to date with news on the JSE.
The team at TreasuryONE does a wonderful job of keeping us informed of the rand movements and the key levels against the US dollar and other currencies. The latest from Wichard Cilliers, Head of Market Risk at TreasuryONE is tha t the rand seems happy in the R15.50 to R15.70 range as we await Friday's US non-farm payroll number. For more on this, refer to this detailed article on how the US dollar is calling the shots for other currencies.
And hot off the press late last night is that Sheryl Sandberg has decided to lean out at Meta (Facebook), stepping down as COO after 14 years. That is really not good news in my view and hasn't done my Meta position any good. This is going to dominate headlines this week.
Have a terrific day!
