STANLIB's Weekly Focus

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF STANLIBs WEEKLY FOCUS

HOT NEWS: STANLIB has attained the TOP ranking in the PlexCrown rankings to become the leading unit trust management company.

This is a tremendous tribute to STANLIB's relatively new franchise approach to managing money, introduced by CEO George Brits just over a year ago.

STANLIB's performance was "all the more remarkable", per Ryk de Klerk, who developed the PlexCrown ratings, in that it took TOP spots in six of the 17 sub-categories that are rated in the PlexCrown system, plus another five STANLIB funds obtained four PlexCrowns, the second highest ranking.

1.STOCK MARKETS PROBABLY UNDERGOING A CORRECTION IN THE BULL MARKET

* Markets became overextended (the elastic became too taughte.g. JSE up 21% in two months) and so are due for some pullback, after running hard since the August lows.
* The headwinds of a soaring oil price and renewed fears of a US recession have helped trigger the correction.
* The correction started on Friday, the 20th anniversary of the mighty 1987 Wall Street crash that saw the US stock market fall 22% in one day.
* In 1987 the JSE fell 44% in four months. But it turned out to be a correction within the big bull market, rather than a lengthy bear market.

2.SNIPPETS OF INFO

* Today's Financial Times compares the dot-com bubble with the current boom in resources, which also look "frothy". The main difference is the forward (one year out) price-to-earnings ratio of the global metals and mining sector is still only 13 times compared with the 70 to 100 PE ratios of many dot-com companies in 2000.
* The FT quotes research done by Barclays Wealth indicating that South Africans have emerged as the nationality most willing to take risks with their investments, while the UK, US and Canadian investors are the most cautious

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