Under The Macroscope

Matthew Pearce chats to William Boshoff, Skybound Capitals Chief Information Security Officer, about the rise of ChatGPT, it's various use cases, and some things to look out for when using this service.

Matthew Pearce chats to World Cup winning ex-Springbok, and current director of Skybound Connect, Francois Louw about how he prepared himself financially for life after sport, and how he now does the same for his clients. Whether you are an athlete or not, the principles stay the same!

We talk to Skybound Capital's Chief Investment Officer Theodore Qi Shou, CFA, CAIA about the opening up of China, the impact on its citizens, and how it will affect the rest of the global economy.

Matthew Pearce talks to group Chief Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla about the impact of the Fed's 75 basis point interest rate hike. They dive into the political turmoil in the UK as well as the US midterm elections.

Matthew Pearce interviews one of Knife Capitals founders Keet Van Zyl, and discusses with him the ins and outs of South African venture capital.

Matthew Pearce chats to Lee Dalley and Peter Martin from Teybridge Capital about Private Capital and the Trade Finance Opportunity.

Matthew Pearce chats to Chief Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla and Research Analyst Ross Muller about the effects of on the macro level as a result of massive changes to the interest rates.

Towards the end, they also touch on the big news coming out of 10 Downing Street and what it may mean for the future.

Matthew Pearce chats to former international cricketer Jacques Kallis about his investment strategy and the power of compound interest as well as to Dave Rundle of RMS who gives the investment viewpoint from the other side of the table.

Matthew Pearce chats to Group Chief Investment Officer Theodore Shou in the Shanghai office about the sudden easing of Chinese Covid-19 restrictions, and what that might mean for the global markets.

Matthew Pearce sits down face to face with twin brothers and Skybound Capital research analysts Karl and Zander Engelhard to discuss the effects of global events on the commodities market. They help answer the question, should you be including commodities in YOUR portfolio?

Matthew Pearce chats to Ross Muller, one of Skybound Capitals' research analysts, and their resident Crypto and Blockchain-related expert.

Ross chats more about the future of the internet and the demolition of the so-called walled castles.

Matthew Pearce chats to George Glynos from ETM Analytics around inflation and cash liquidity as well as how global macro events are impacting South Africa both positively and negatively.

Matthew Pearce chats to Franc Zvorar, the CEO of Leisurecom Group about how the sector took some heavy knocks, and what is happening now that the restrictions are being somewhat lifted.

Matthew Pearce chats to the Newman Leech, CEO of RE: Capital about the effect that Covid-19 has had on the property market and how it's rebounded.

Matthew Pearce chats to Jabir Sardharwalla about the effects of Russia's war on the markets, specifically regarding inflation. We find out interesting, yet unfortunately somewhat worrying facts about Russias grip on oil, gas and wheat and what that could mean for Europe and the rest of the world.

To sign up for Jabirs weekly newsletter, send an email to jabir@skyboundcapital.com and your email address will be added to the mailing list.

Matthew Pearce chats to Theodore Shou, Skybound's Chief Investment Officer, about some stories, rumours and myths coming out of China across a variety of topics and then one by one determines whether they are TRUE or BUSTED.

Matthew Pearce chats to Josie Davis, Skybound Capitals ESG and Impact Analyst about the rise in carbon prices and how that is affecting corporations abilities to hit their net-zero targets, and the benefits in incentivizing other businesses to focus on greener practices.

A power-packed final episode for 2021 with both Jabir Sardharwalla and Theodore Shou joining Matthew Pearce to discuss the Private Debt asset class.

Josie Davis joins Matthew Pearce and chats about the recent South African fuel price hikes along with the recent decisions made at COP26 aroudn the use of fossil fuels.

Jabir runs Matthew through his top 5 investments for the upcoming year. Listen to find out more about where your focus should be in 2022.

Matthew Pearce chats to Skybound Capital's Chief Investment Officer, Theodore Shou, about silly season consumerism and Matthew learns about the Asian tradition of Single's Day.

Jabir Sardharwalla breaks down the latest COP convention and brings us insight as to what it may mean for the rest of us, not to mention the planet.

Theodore Shou, Skybound's Chief Investment Officer, joins Matthew Pearce to chat about the news coming out of COP 26 as well as the rise and viability of electric vehicles.

U.K. based research analyst Tom Wiley talks to Matthew Pearce about the state of the modular housing industry in the United Kingdom and how it can beneficially impact the government's housing and emissions goals.

Brothers and research analysts Karl and Zander Engelhard chat to Matt about the impact that inflation is having around the world.

Brothers and research analysts Karl and Zander Engelhard chat to Matt about the fluctuations in government bonds as well as long term equity yields and how this informs the thinking around the 60/40 portfolios.

Jabir Sardharwalla is back on the show this week and gives an interesting look at the UK property market, the impact of the coronavirus on London's housing market and where and why people are moving around the country.

Theodore Shou, Chief Investment Officer for the Skybound Group, gives us the lowdown on the Evergrande debt crisis.

Jabir Sardharwalla is back on the show, and he and Matt chat about the effect Geopolitics is having on the global markets.

Matthew Pearce chats to Brendan Jack, a wealth advisor around the slew of regulations being brought in by China and how it's affecting the top tech company's share prices as well as society as a whole.

Host Matthew Pearce chats to Skybound Capital's CIO Theodore Shou about the state of global shipping and its knock-on effects.

Ross Muller, Skybound's Senior Analyst, talks us through the basics of what NFT's are, how they can be used across a variety of industries, and who is leading the charge in the current market.

Matthew Pearce chats to Josie Davis, Skybound's ESG and Impact Analyst about the effect the pandemic has had on women in the workplace globally.

Things change up this week on the Skybound Capital Podcast as usual host Matthew Pearce sits in the interviewee's seat. Analysts Josie Davis and Ross Muller ask the tough questions on this weeks edition of the show.

How the legalisation of cannabis, cannabinoids and THC has impacted the economic growth of investors, states and countries.

Matthew and Theodore chat about how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected growth forecasts in China. But is it influencing it positively or negatively? Listen to this episode to find out more from Theodore Shou in our Asian office.

How are the UK real estate prices affected by the latest rulings in the UK Covid Response?

Communications and Business Development guru Matthew Pearce chats to Theodore Shou, Group Chief Investment Officer, about the effects, opportunities and long-term planning around natural disasters like flooding and climate change.

Matthew Pearce welcomes back Jabir Sardharwalla after a two week absence. They chat about the impending "Freedom Day" in the UK and the effects of the lifting of the COVID restrictions.

Join us as Matthew Pearce continues his interview with Skybound Capitals Josie Davis about ESG and responsible investing.

Join us as Matthew Pearce interviews Skybound Capitals Josie Davis about ESG and responsible investing.

Semiconductors, also known as microchips and integrated circuits, are essential components in every electronics product, whether it be a simple remote control unit for changing channels on the television, or a supercomputer used to simulate weather patterns. Currently, these are in short supply.

This week Matthew and Jabir discuss the impact of COVID immunity for different countries around the world. From here they get into a fascinating discussion about the historical precedent for an impending upward trend for commodity prices.

A strange week in markets! Until yesterday, markets were selling off on the back of continued inflation worries and taper-talk which, in turn, drove yields. Amazing what a combination of Central Bank talk and misinterpretation of data can do.

Following on from last week’s Hybrid vs remote working themes, NatWest announced it only expects about 13% of its staff to return to primarily office-based working while 55% will adopt hybrid working and 32% a remote first model (minimum 2 days pm). HSBC aims to cut its office footprint by 40% over the long-term and is moving some 1,200 call centre staff to permanent home working. NatWest was quick to say they have no immediate plans to close more offices. I can’t help thinking this is an opportunity for Banks to cut back even further on costs under the pretext of Covid19. The reality is this was going to happen anyway – just more slowly. What happens to all that real estate stock these banks have? Developers will have a field day!

Skybound Capitals Matthew Pearce chats to William Boshoff, the group's Chief Information Security Officer about the threat cyber criminals pose to major businesses around the world. With some recent examples of ransomware holding companies' data hostage, what kind of threats could you be under?

Today we are joined by chief investment officer Theodore Shou who is based in the Hong Kong office of Skybound Capital. Together, he and Matt chat about the state of the Asian markets and the impact and recurrence of Covid-19.

Matt and Jabir speak about the conflict in Gaza and the human, economic and social ramifications.

We’re all also aware of the acute housing shortage across major cities internationally and we take a look at how governments are fighting back.

The NFIB small business survey showed “jobs hard to fill” hit record levels. “Finding qualified employees remains the biggest challenge for small business and is slowing economic growth”. Worryingly, planned price rises, by small business, is rising strongly!

New jobs created totalled just 266,000 when the market expectation, with good justification, was for something closer to a million! To add insult to injury, there was a big, downward revision to March’s payroll of some -140,000.

Have low defaults stymied productivity? Like a magic show, Central Banks (CBs) have become the magicians while the audience is everyone else (Government, Markets). Default rates are not far away from their lowest (2007 before sub-prime started to blow up). Today they are only c3.5% - despite enduring Covid19, endless fiscal and monetary stimulus, rising yields and upwardly rising inflation. Debt has soared but, amidst all the initiatives by CBs at buying it back for QE operations and supporting markets (corporate debt, ETFs……to name a few), effectively there is a giant CB PUT option in place (a safety net) designed to prevent companies from collapsing in almost all sectors. Each cycle brings with it an even bigger round of debt stimulus and so the cycle goes on – until it doesn’t. What Covid19 has done is to enable tech savvy companies to forge ahead while many others are bailed out. Some are investing in new capital equipment and modernising production but CAPEX data is still not strong enough to suggest it is more widespread.

Matt and Jabir chat about the inward investment into Cape Town by global retail giant Amazon. They also touch on the spectacular rise and fall of the European Super League and what it means for the leagues and clubs in general.

It has been a heavy week with releases around Growth (GDP), Retail Sales and Inflation. In a nutshell, they are all rising! Biden’s stimulus package ($1.9TN) is having an immediate effect as evident in the retail sales data. The latter jumped almost 10%. Even excluding Autos, it was still up a formidable 8.4%. The impact was across the board. China’s GDP data released today showed very healthy progress too.

It is with huge sadness that we learnt of the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Married to the Queen for over 70 years.

Sweden has completed its first study into a digital currency (“e-krona): it concluded that it might take a lot longer to enact than initially thought and the current pilot won’t be finished till early next year. The study acknowledged that although the usage of cash is diminishing, there is no reason to embark on such a project.

Matt and Jabir chat about the year to date and discuss the market growth from this time last year up until now. 

Join us as we take a look at all of the major markets, and the sectors that influence their growth.

Flash PMI readings, measuring activity for Manufacturing and Services are out for March. The Manufacturing data is very strong for the UK, EU and US. Each has a different story - So find out more in this episode of Under The Macroscope.

The Western world is in a tizz and all over the possibility the EU is about to get into a war, a vaccine war, in which it’s threatening to place curbs on vaccine exports from the EU to other regions / countries.

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This week we witnessed Brazil, Russia, Turkey all raise rates. It’s also believed Nigeria and South Africa could follow suit. Meanwhile, amongst Developed markets, Norway has stated it will bring forward its first rate hike end of the year with two more likely in early 2022. So what’s going on?

In an otherwise light, newsflow week, the successful passage of the stimulus bill dominated. It was quite a result for the Biden presidency, especially as the full amount was passed! The final tweaks to the bill were very few. PLUS Matt asks Jabir, in light of the polarising Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan, who do we trust when it comes to shaping our knowledge of the worlds news?

The spat between the UK and EU has flared up again. The UK has unilaterally decided to extend the grace period for checks on food imports to N. Ireland till October (6 month extension). The EU is in a spasm with one official saying the UK’s new approach to everything is confrontation.

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US study showing the more aggressive of the newer Covid19 variants may be less dangerous than previously thought.

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Cuba announced it is starting final-stage trials of two new Covid19 vaccines which it has developed.

10y Government bond yields soared! On the back of this, we have witnessed a big spike in volatility across all asset classes. Couple this with month-end and, not surprisingly, volatility is compounded. So why the massive spike in yields? Listen in to the show to find out!

Chief strategist Jabir Sardharwalla and Matthew Pearce talk about the impact that the vaccine rollouts are having on the markets. With projected herd immunity status on the somewhat near horizon for the US and the UK, what does this mean for businesses resuming after lockdown restrictions are eased?

This week saw TESLA announce it had bought $1.5bn of Bitcoin (BTC). This sent the BTC price soaring over 20% from $39,400 to $48,000 in under 24 hours. MASTERCARD announced this week it is planning to give merchants the option to receive payments in cryptos later this year and it came as quite a surprise. But Mastercard has not commented which cryptos it intends to support, or indeed where, but has set out its 2019 “Principles for Blockchain Partnerships” framework.

Find out more in the latest episode of Under The Macroscope.

Skybound's Senior Research Analyst Ross Muller makes the case FOR cryptocurrencies while Chief Investment Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla is slightly more hesitant to fully trust the digital currencies just yet. Find out more about each of their reasons in the latest episode of Under The Macroscope.

The big news this week – and one which has dominated market volatility (see market performance below) - has been the short squeeze saga around certain companies, most notably GameStop (GME). There were many others too (such as AMC, BB, BBBY and EXPR). These stocks suddenly started soaring despite their ailing prospects. So what happened?

Matthew Pearce, Skybound Capital's communications and business development guru gets the low down on the global events affecting the markets from Chief Investment Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla. Listen in each week to find out the big headlines from the week that was.

Matthew Pearce, Skybound Capital's communications and business development guru gets the low down on the global events affecting the markets from Chief Investment Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla. Listen in each week to find out the big headlines from the week that was.

Matthew Pearce, Skybound Capital's communications and business development guru gets the low down on the global events affecting the markets from Chief Investment Strategist Jabir Sardharwalla. Listen in each week to find out the big headlines from the week that was.