Marco Olevano, CFA

Probably most important macro chart. $DXY

🇺🇸 President Trump just posted this: "Iran’s New Regime President" ... "has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear."

@Vodacom is there an outage on international connectivity? Battling to open overseas pages or connections. A friend also on vodacom same issue with fibre and mobile

GOLD HAD ITS WORST WEEKLY DECLINE SINCE 1983

In a sudden turn of events, US 12-month inflation expectations have surged to 5.2%, the highest level since March 2023. In just 3 weeks, markets have gone from pricing-in rate cuts to rate hikes.

I managed funds/portfolios for semi-sovereign funds. What retail investors are thinking is that large funds operate in the same manner as a few million dollar portfolio. No. Their holdings are so large that reduction in 2-3% of a stock position can push prices of even the most liquid stocks by min 10%. This execution can be done over weeks. In the event of a price shock: they reach out to the most liquid assets for raising cash. While raising cash can be a defensive move, in most cases it can be compliance requirement or meeting certain financing requirements. See #GOLD with that perspective.

US Initial Jobless Claims (W/W) 14-Mar: 205K (est 215K; prev 213K) - Continuing Claims (W/W) 12-Mar: 1.1857M (est 1.852M; prev 1.850M; prevR 1.847M)

TRADERS NO LONGER PRICE IN FED INTEREST RATE CUT DURING 2026

@NaipaulAvatar Clearly you created your account @NaipaulAvatar just to troll and no point bothering with people like you who have nothing better to do. We have a verifiable track record which speaks to our performance. Cheers

@MarcoOlevano Grifters. If they actually making money trading they would bother with this scam.

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Alibaba Q3 2026 Earnings - Rev. 284.84B Yuan (est 289.79B Yuan) - Adj. EBITDA 34.06B Yuan (est 39.62B Yuan) - Earnings Per ADS 7.09 Yuan (est 12.34 Yuan) - China E-Commerce Business Group Rev 159.35B Yuan

FOMC STATEMENT COMPARE

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged, remains at 3.50% - 3.75%.

Another rejection at the upper boundary. The pattern can become another bearish rising wedge. $BTCUSD

Gold and silver are not acting well in a period of rapidly rising geopolitical risks. We have an Iran War, Strait of Hormuz blockade, rising volatility. In the old framework, that setup should be close to ideal for gold. But once you understand what is now driving gold, this move makes perfect sense. Something fundamental changed after the US and Europe froze Russian reserves in 2022. For decades, surplus countries parked their excess savings in US dollar assets, mostly Treasuries. The freezing of Russian reserves combined with the current administration's explicit push to discourage foreign countries from parking excess savings in US financial assets, forced surplus countries to rethink where they store reserves. And those countries haven't changed their domestic policies that generate the excess savings, so those savings have to be placed somewhere. The result is that gold and silver have increasingly become the obvious “neutral” reserve assets. That’s why gold decoupled from the three factors that used to explain it…real interest rates, volatility, and liquidity. Now reserve accumulation flows have become the primary driver. That shift has a consequence I don’t think most investors have thought through. If gold is now primarily driven by reserve flows from surplus countries, then gold has become pro-cyclical. Reserve growth is driven by export revenues, trade surpluses, economic growth in surplus economies. When the global economy is strong and surplus countries are generating large export revenues, their excess savings grow, their reserve accumulation accelerates, and gold catches a bid. When that surplus generation is disrupted, the bid weakens or reverses. This is exactly what is happening with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The GCC countries are major reserve/gold buyers and now their export revenues are collapsing. They likely need to liquidate some reserves to cover fiscal obligations, and gold is one of their most liquid assets. Even if the reserve sales aren’t excessive yet, the market can see their reserve accumulation has stalled and probably reversed. That flow, which was a meaningful source of gold demand, has gone to zero at best. There are also secondary effects on other surplus economies. China is the world's largest oil importer. An energy shock of this magnitude slows Chinese growth, and compresses Chinese surpluses, which slows Chinese reserve accumulation. That same growth shock ripples through Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and the rest of Asia. The whole chain that has been driving gold higher, surplus countries generating excess savings that need a home outside the dollar system, is being disrupted by an event that in the old model would have been unambiguously bullish for gold. This doesn't mean the structural case for gold is broken. The dollar standard is still ending. Surplus countries still need an alternative to Treasuries and gold is still the most obvious destination. But it does mean gold is going to be more volatile along that structural trend than most people expect, and the volatility will correlate with global growth and surplus generation rather than with the old drivers. Gold rallies when surpluses expand. Gold sells off when surpluses contract. Even if the reason for the contraction is rising geopolitical risk that, under the old model, should have sent gold to the moon.

*US FEB. PRODUCER PRICES RISE 0.7% M/M; EST. +0.3% *US FEB. PRODUCER PRICES RISE 3.4% Y/Y; EST. +3.0%

US Core PPI MoM Actual 0.5% (Forecast 0.3%, Previous 0.8%)

US Core PPI YoY Actual 3.9% (Forecast 3.7%, Previous 3.6%)

#TCEHY #TENCENT #NASPERS #PROSUS TENCENT 4Q REV. 194.37B YUAN EST. 194.07B

🏗️ 𝐏𝐏𝐂 𝐋𝐭𝐝 ($𝐏𝐏𝐂) 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞: "𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭" 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 PPC has released a strong operational update for the 10 months ended 31 January 2026, showing that its turnaround strategy is ahead of plan with significant margin expansion and record cash flows from Zimbabwe. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐍𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟏𝟎 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐯𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫): 🔹 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐃𝐀: Up 22% (Adjusted 📈) 🔹 𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐃𝐀 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧: Strengthened to 19.4% (from 16.6% 🚀) 🔹 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞: Up 4% 🔹 𝐍𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡 (𝐒𝐀 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩): R367 million (Massive jump from R106m last year 💰) 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: ✅ 𝐙𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐰𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐂𝐨𝐰: PPC Zimbabwe delivered a record dividend of US$36 million (R595m) to the group, a massive increase from US$8m in the prior period. Volumes in Zimbabwe surged by 22%. 𝐒𝐀 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Despite flat volumes in SA & Botswana, EBITDA increased by 17% as the group prioritized "value over volume," expanding SA margins to 17.3%. 𝐑𝐊𝟑 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭: The new Western Cape integrated plant is on schedule and within budget, with R491m spent in the current period. It is expected to provide a "step change" in earnings by FY28. 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: CFO Brenda Berlin will retire on 30 June 2026; a successor search is underway. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 ⚠️ 𝐆𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞: A mill gearbox failure at the Bulawayo factory (Feb 2026) will temporarily impact margins in the short term. 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐬: Major maintenance at two SA plants starts in March 2026, which impacted current working capital due to inventory build-up. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭 ⚖️ PPC is no longer a "recovery" play—it is now a "delivery" play. The massive cash flow from Zimbabwe provides a safety net for the RK3 capital expenditure, and the board is officially considering a dividend based on the Zimbabwean "flow-through." The stock is positioning itself for a major structural earnings lift once the new plant comes online in 2028. 📅 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲: Today, 18 March 2026. #JSE #PPC #Cement #Infrastructure #Investing #SouthAfrica #Zimbabwe