Reporting on a set of results from Datacentrix is almost tedious. They`re always great. This half-year, however, things went a bit strange.

When Datacentrix announced its interims for the six months ended 31 August 2003, the market spanked it vigorously. Not unlike last year, mind you, when a peak of 130c was swiftly knocked down to 110c, before the share continued its gradual appreciation. Then the results were obviously good.

This time, the results were good, but not as obviously so. The stronger rand, which stood at R7.67 to the dollar compared to R10.58 at the end of August 2002, wiped out an almost 24 percent unit growth in product sales figures.