WorldWideMarkets Episode 692 — 26 August 2026

Full transcript

Lightly edited for readability. Recorded Tuesday morning, 25 August 2026. Runtime 22:13.

Introduction (0:00)

Worldwide markets this week. Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, is trying to bend US yields to his will. Does he have any chance of winning? Spoiler: no.

Hey, gold stocks. Gold is on the move. I am going to have a look at the local gold stocks and see which, if any, are the better ones, and flag some red flags to look out for. And then stocks on the move on the JSE — we have two on the bearish side.

I am Simon Brown, this is WorldWideMarkets episode 692 for 26 August, and I am recording this late on Tuesday morning.

WorldWideMarkets is powered by Standard Bank Global Markets Retail and Shyft, the global money app that puts travel, shopping, payments and investments in the palm of your hand. Enjoy the cheapest forex rates, anytime, anywhere. Shyft, powered by Standard Bank. Thanks to Standard Bank, thanks to Shyft. Let’s get into it.

Scott Bessent takes on the bond market (0:50)

Let’s start with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Interestingly, he was working with George Soros when they broke the pound. When was that — early nineties, 1992, 1993, somewhere around there. He is now the US Treasury Secretary, and he has decided that the 10 and 30-year yields are bad. So they sell short term and they buy long term. Remember, if you buy, you push the price up, and pushing price up pushes the yield down. That is what he wants: a lower yield.

Everybody wants a lower interest rate. To be clear, that is not Trump being crazy, that is just Trump being a human being. One of the few times he is a human being is when he says he would like lower rates. Yes, we would all like lower rates. We give our local MPC all shades of shade when they do not cut.

But trying to fight the bond market? I will take you back to the late nineties in South Africa, when our Reserve Bank tried to fight the market. That time it was the currency market, and it lost hands down. We have seen many instances. Turkey has tried to fight rates as well. You cannot fight a market. Eventually you run out of ammunition.

I know what you are thinking — this is the US government. Eventually you run out of ammunition, I do not care who you are. Well, okay, you do not, right, because you can print an infinite amount of US dollars. But if that is your solution, you have got bigger trouble.

Things are really messy out there. Rates are going higher because there are worries around inflation and worries around all sorts of things. What that has done, of course, is spike gold, and it has also sent the rand to 16. Those are different stories, and we will get to them in a moment.

Events and the Fat Wallet Show relaunch (2:50)

Events coming up. One is next week Wednesday at 10:30 in the morning: One ETF, 100% offshore. It is the etfSA Oyster Actively Managed ETF with Nerina Visser. There was a challenge with the booking, so double-check that you have booked.

Then we have a Standard Bank Power Hour on 17 September at 17:30, either webcast or in person, looking at CFDs from beginner through to intermediate. If you are an expert, I always think it is worth some of your time — if you can pick up one extra thing you did not know, you are a winner. Head to justonelap.com/events for more information and bookings.

Quickly, while we are here: we have relaunched the Fat Wallet Show, Kristia van Heerden and myself. This is a show that went off the air five years ago. It is back, but we are looking for sponsors, and that is the terms and conditions. We have done a pilot. You can get more information at justonelap.com/fatwallet and give it a listen. If you are a corporate and you are interested in sponsoring, reach out: simon@justonelap.com.

Gold at $4,630 and a stronger rand (4:00)

Gold is on the move, the rand is on the move, and I got to thinking: hang on a second, let’s go and look at the gold miners. They have not all reported — we still have Harmony later this week, we had Gold Fields early this morning, and we have not yet had Pan African. So there are unfortunately one or two holes, but I thought let’s do it now rather than later.

The $4,000 level on gold held really well. For a long time $4,500 was holding, and I kept saying that a move back to $4,000, maybe even the high $3,000s, would not surprise me. That happened. We actually started moving ahead of the US Treasury Secretary saying his stuff — that was last week’s move — but we started moving back in the first week of August. Futures are through $4,700 and spot is trading at $4,630 as we speak. It is down a little bit on the day, but gold is seemingly on the move.

Is it going back to plus $5,000? The answer is yes. If you ask me when it is going back, that part I do not know, but it is certainly on the move.

Then we couple that with the rand. The rand has moved stronger. On Friday it momentarily got below 16, and it has been there again this week. It is trading at 16.01 at the moment. The rand is looking stronger, make no mistake about it.

What is the story for gold? The story for gold remains all of the old stories: concerns around wars, energy costs — every worry out there plays into gold. Why has it been having a tough time recently? Because I can go and buy a US 10-year at four and a half percent, or a US 30-year at five and a half percent — not if the US Treasury Secretary has anything to do with it. Why do I need gold when I can get that as my safe haven? Reserve currency of the world, no risk of default, four and a half or five and a half percent a year, locked in for 10 years or 30 years. Absolutely.

But as that starts to come down, gold gets attractive again. We have seen China buying, we have seen all the buying happening, and suddenly gold is back in the news. So let’s go and look at the gold stocks.

The five JSE gold miners, stock by stock (6:40)

There are five that really count: Pan African, DRDGOLD, Harmony, Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti. To be clear, there are others out there around the world — I am looking at the JSE, and this is all correct as of Tuesday morning, 25 August.

So, spot at call it $4,600. The rand is 16.01. The rand gold price is R2,387,000 per kilogram. Yo. Fun fact: the price DRD realised in its 2026 financial year was only a few percent below where spot is right now — they really got that going well. It is meaningless, but it is a lovely number. And that R16 is important.

Pan African. We have had an update, results are still coming. Production is looking to be around 40% higher — they have got some new mines coming. All-in sustaining costs are around $1,870, the cheapest of the group, and with the rand at these levels it pushes up to around $2,200. Balance sheet is net cash of 220 million dollars, market cap of R63 billion, which puts it at the second smallest. P/E around 10 — you know what, all of these P/Es are tiny, but that is what you get at cyclical tops in commodities. And it is around 28% off the 52-week highs.

The stocks themselves are telling us a fair bit, and I think those stories are in many cases quite important. Pan African got down to R20 and has now bounced to R30, although it has been as high as R40. We are absolutely seeing these stocks on the move, there is no doubt about that. I was saying for ages on this very show that Gold Fields was simply too cheap.

Pan African’s targets: six buys and a strong buy, a high price target of R41.41, an average of R35, and a low of R29.94, which is roughly where it is right now. Pan African in July was down at R20, it is now back at R30, it is off those highs of over R40, but it is up some 50% already. That does not mean it is game over. There is still potential in these stocks. Yes, that is a big move, but I think there are still potentially moves coming.

DRDGOLD. Quite an interesting one as well. DRD’s results were out last week. Production was flat at 155,000 ounces, all-in sustaining costs $1,986, price realised $4,218. Balance sheet is debt free with R2.7 billion of cash, market cap of R43 billion, the smallest of the group, and 24% off the highs. These are all off Monday’s close.

Again, no surprises on the chart. These stocks are bouncing, and they have bounced hard. DRD is off the lows in the mid-30s and is now trading just below R50. The high is R65. The question with all of these is whether they can move higher, and the short answer is that if gold sustains, absolutely. With DRD there is very little analyst coverage. We have one price target at R564. Someone was drunk. That makes no sense whatsoever — that certainly is not a real number. Totally out to lunch.

Harmony. We have had a trading statement, results are due later this week. Production was 1.4 million ounces, all-in sustaining costs just over $2,000, price realised $3,800, net cash of R1.33 billion, market cap of just under R230 billion, a P/E of 8.6, and 13% off the high.

Again, not necessarily a massive surprise. They have all to some degree come down from those highs, and they have all bounced to some degree. Harmony is pretty much back at those highs already — from below R250 last month to R365 now. Analyst expectations: a high price of R395, an average of R333 and a low of R280. Harmony is at R365. Here is one where the market is saying, hmm, we think it might be fair. Maybe you disagree, but the market is certainly saying it might be fair.

Gold Fields. Results out Tuesday morning. Production was up 12% at just over 1.25 million ounces, all-in sustaining costs $1,893, realised price $4,678, market cap R476 billion, and 20-odd percent off the highs.

Again, a stock that has been running. This is the one I have said to you guys and girls already — I have been saying for an age, keep an eye on this one, because it had overdone it to the downside. It got to almost R500. It is up almost 50% in a month. When these stocks move, there is absolutely no playing around.

Analyst expectations: a low price of R586, an average of R715, and Gold Fields is at R760, but the high is R930. We have actually got a sell here.

AngloGold Ashanti. That is the one I am currently holding, and have been holding for quite some time. Production was down 4% at just under 1.5 million ounces, all-in sustaining costs $1,998, price realised $4,650, balance sheet net cash of $991 million, market cap just over a trillion rand, and down some 8% off those highs.

This is a stock that has been running. I did sell some, and I am trying to remember where. I think my sale price might now be underwater. For a while there I was looking clever with my exit price, but it is almost back to its highs. It got to just above R2,000 in the first week of March, as the US had attacked Iran, and now it is trading at R1,950. I think my exit was maybe around R1,700 and some change. But I have still got some left, and I am looking to add. R1,200 was a very strong support zone — it really held on tight there. The chart is looking really good.

Price targets: a hold, four buys and three strong buys. The low price target is R1,228, which is kind of that support. The average is R1,828, the price is currently R1,915, and the high price is R2,165.

So these stocks have moved, make no mistake about it. They have moved on anticipation.

Ranking the five, and the red flags (13:40)

Let’s rank them.

Gold Fields I think is best run. Highest free cash flow yield of the five at around 10.5% annualised. Buy it for the quality — but Ghana. Adjusted free cash flow up 134% to two and a quarter billion dollars. Yo, dollars. The cheap multiple is real.

Harmony. Here is a fun fact: they have hit their gold production guidance 11 years in a row. For a gold miner, that is a big one. But of course copper is now real here as well — they are doing what, 18,000 tons of copper. So Harmony is no longer that pure gold play. They have also got a collar, which I will come to.

AngloGold Ashanti. This is more about capital return than operations. Free cash flow has doubled to $1.9 billion, they have got a $2 billion buyback, and they are paying dividends absolutely galore. Here you really are buying the balance sheet. A lot of it has already happened — AngloGold Ashanti was a laggard forever, and a lot of that gap has closed, but there is tons of cash.

Pan African Resources. Buy it for growth, but they have got a spending year ahead of them. The growth is real, but they are not going to get it just yet. Production was up, make no mistake, but they have got a lot of capex coming.

DRDGOLD. Highest beta, longest wait, purest gold, a rand-gold instrument. They have got that Vision 2028, which is working. Cash power, no debt, R2.77 billion, and completely unhedged. Head grade of 0.193 grams per ton — they get 0.2 of a gram per ton of dirt. I cannot wrap my head around that. Kudos to them.

Here are the red flags, because the red flags are absolutely real.

Harmony has a collar over just under 600,000 ounces, collared at R2.291 million per kilogram. Spot is R2.387 million, so it is underwater by about 4%. It is about 40% of production, and that does take some of the shine out of it. Although, you know, it is hedged at nice prices if the price falls. If it runs, remember it has got copper and remember it has got the hedge.

Gold Fields has got the Ghana problem. They have got a lease that expires in April of next year: Tarkwa. That is around 338,000 ounces a year, so it is not immaterial in their world — they do about 1.25 million ounces in the year. The thing is that back in April this year the Ghanaian government simply did not renew the Damang licence. They just said, nah, thanks, we will take it. So the precedent has been set. Gold Fields would say, in their own words, and I quote, that if it is not renewed it “would have a material and adverse impact”. You are buying it at risk of that. That is why the stock sold off so much, and that is why I like it — but I would keep it small and I would have some other gold there as well.

DRDGOLD’s real cost is not in its all-in sustaining costs. Including growth capital it was over $3,000, so watch that.

Pan African is guiding on a rand of 17. Back then the rand was maybe 17, now it is 16.

AngloGold Ashanti has got Obuasi production down 32%. That was after an incident in which someone tragically died, and it has cost them some money. Of the increase in costs — $254 an ounce — $216 came from stuff outside of their control: royalties, inflation, fuel and the like. To be clear, that is the challenge. Fuel is real here. Fuel prices are absolutely hurting.

Diary dates and what Simon is buying (17:30)

Still to come: on Thursday we get Harmony’s numbers, and then we have got dividends coming. On 16 September we get the Pan African full-year numbers — the first numbers on that 40% production jump, and we will get more detail around that. And then it is April next year when we see what happens with Gold Fields and that Ghanaian lease.

Remember some important points. Single-digit or below-double-digit P/Es across an entire gold sector are talking about what a top of the cycle looks like, not about valuation.

Remember, gold peaked in the last week of January and early February at $5,500. It was $4,000 in July and is back at $4,600. We are seeing some buying come through. I do not know that we are going to get a strong run straight back to $5,500, but I do expect us to get back to $5,500 — that certainly would not surprise me in the least.

So there are some thoughts on the gold miners. What am I doing? I hold AngloGold Ashanti. I am going to pick up a little bit of Gold Fields, and I might then pick up some Pan African as well if we see any weakness. Any weakness in the price and I will certainly pick up some more, and we will take it from there. There are risks out there, but I think gold has still got some more space to go. I think that certainly is the case.

Naspers and Clicks (19:15)

Let’s get to some stocks on the move. In this case they are both moving negative.

I want to start with Naspers. To be clear, I like Naspers. I like its stake in Tencent, and it has got a massive discount to Tencent. And yet, ever since they did that share split back in October of last year — remember the five-for-one share split — it has been one-way traffic, and it has now broken lower. It is absolutely breaking lower, it is absolutely messy.

Someone was saying to me the other day, what do I do with my Naspers holding? If you hold it, I would hang on. This R760-ish is another support level. But if that goes, where are we next? Next down the line is probably another R90 lower, potentially. This one is still falling. I would not be buying in a hurry.

And then Clicks, which I did buy — go have a listen to my story around Clicks. I looked at it and at Mr Price. Clicks is just looking poor. It is back at pandemic levels. It is cheap, by all accounts it is cheap. It is facing some challenges and some headwinds, but let’s be clear, Clicks is cheap. Absolutely it is. And just because it is cheap does not mean it is going to turn in a hurry. It can stay cheap for a very long time.

Wrap (21:10)

WorldWideMarkets is powered by Standard Bank Global Markets Retail and Shyft, the global money app that puts travel, shopping, payments and investments in the palm of your hand. Enjoy the cheapest forex rates, anytime, anywhere. Shyft, powered by Standard Bank.

That is me for this week. Next week everything is normal. If you are going to be at the Money Summit in Sandton on Tuesday the first, come say hi. If you do not know what I am talking about, go to moneyweb.co.za — you will see the links, and you can register for free using the code MONEYWEB. I have got a couple of sessions there. It means this podcast will probably only come out on the Wednesday, so there is that.

And then the week after that, the week of 7 September, I am at the beach. I do not know what I am going to do. You know what I might do? I am doing a presentation tomorrow, the 26th. Maybe I record that presentation — it is about 20 or 25 minutes — and I drop that in. We will see. That one is some way off, so we have still got some time.

But for that, my name is Simon. We will chat again next week. As always, look after yourself, and if you can, look after somebody else as well. Cheers all.