The Investment Perspective, with Ninety One

The AI debate has moved past valuation and onto something harder to price: whether record capex converts into durable cash flow. From SpaceX's post-IPO wobble to China's cheaper models and the sector's circular financing, Anton du Plooy makes the case for why stock selection, not conviction on AI as a trade, will separate winners from losers.

For 20 years, buybacks and shrinking share counts boosted US equity returns. Sahil Mahtani argues that AI-driven IPOs and secondary issuance are set to reverse that trend, potentially dragging returns down. He draws a parallel to EMs in the 2010s, where a similar issuance wave eroded returns, but says that headwind for EMs is fading just as it builds in the US.

Jason Borbora-Sheen unpacks the first coordinated US-Japan currency intervention since 1998 and why a stronger yen won't hold unless Japan's real rates move. He argues the bigger signal is a global rate cycle that may be settling higher than markets expect, and explains how that's shaping a cautious stance in fixed income.

The US Federal Reserve held rates steady for a fifth straight meeting, but three dissents and a chair who won't give forward guidance left bond markets more unsettled than the decision itself. John Stopford explains why the confusion matters more than the vote, and what it means for positioning across bonds and equities.

The SARB's split decision to leave the repo rate at 7% caught almost every economist off guard, but Ruen Naidu argues the central bank's own scenario analysis tells a more nuanced story. He unpacks why a lower-for-now stance doesn't mean a dovish central bank, and sets out what the Fed's own hawkish pivot under its new chair means for global bond markets.

SA corporate credit holds up even as GDP growth stalls and inflation risk builds. Stephen Naidoo explains why strong technicals, not improving fundamentals, are driving the market, and why that gap demands a more conservative, quality-first approach rather than complacency.

Kevin Warsh has chaired his first Fed meeting and testified to Congress, but is he simply doing Trump's bidding? Philip Saunders doesn't think so. He makes sense of Warsh's push to challenge Fed groupthink, why productivity and the AI boom could lift US growth well above conventional estimates, and what it means for inflation, interest rates and the dollar.

John Biccard argues that South African equities have become disconnected from the country's own improving bond market. He points to retail names trading at deep discounts to intrinsic value, a first move into global technology after a brutal software sell-off, and a patient multi-year bet on a spirits recovery. In short: buy what's hated, hold through the discomfort, and let the turning point do the work.