BROKERS’ NOTES: Buy Novo Nordisk, sell Anglo American Platinum

David Shapiro, chief global equity strategist: Sasfin Wealth

Buy: Novo Nordisk

The theme a lot of people are overlooking is weight loss. Danish company Novo Nordisk came out with its numbers last week, and just look at the sales of weight-loss drug Wegovy — they more than doubled. One of the reasons they weren’t higher is that the company simply can’t manufacture enough. That’s the kind of demand we’re seeing globally. Wegovy is not a celebrity drug, it’s not there so that Elon Musk can lose a few pounds; this is a much more serious theme. The fact that the company has made breakthroughs medically and is showing results underpins where it is going to go. I don’t think we can brush aside the impact it’s going to have on society, on people who suffer from obesity and diabetes. Analysts might think it’s overpriced and there’s too much good news baked in already, but it’s early stages for these companies, and I remain very positive on the theme.

Sell: Anglo American Platinum

I’m a bit concerned that platinum prices continue to ease back. If we go back a couple of years, the palladium price was something close to $3,000 an ounce, and platinum was where it is today. But the palladium price has completely tanked and is now trading where it always used to — slightly below platinum. It’s an unravelling of prices and we haven’t seen the bottom. That’s having a huge impact on the producers, which have had to take action — they have to adjust their operations to conditions. There’s no sense that things are going to change, particularly the longer US Fed chair Jerome Powell stays with high rates and global interest rates are high. I think the turnaround is going to be longer than we expected, which is a nice way of saying, stay out. It might not fall further from these prices, but it does look like the turnaround is going to take a while.