Looks like Monday merger madness has hit the largest retailer in the known galaxy. This morning, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) made public its intentions to purchase South African retailer Massmart Holdings. Walmart offered 148 rand ($21.13) per share, bringing the total price tag for the purchase to $4.26 billion.

The move is an attempt by the American retail giant to establish itself in the quickly growing African market. Massmart operates 290 stores in 13 African countries, most of them concentrated in South Africa. Walmart considers the acquisition of Massmart "a compelling growth opportunity" that could "provide a platform for growth and expansion in othre African countries."

Tobacco titan Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) is snapping up the South African operations of Swedish Match for a cool 1.75 billion rand, or roughly $224.7 million. The acquisition is part of PM's broader strategy to gain a foothold in the smokeless tobacco arena. Currently, Swedish Match South Africa is the market leader in the South African pipe tobacco and snuff categories.

"This financially attractive acquisition represents an excellent strategic fit for our business in South Africa," said Jean-Claude Kunz, PM's president of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa. "We firmly believe that merging the two businesses will provide us with the talent, infrastructure, and expertise to further build and grow our portfolio of strong brands in this important market."

To begin with let's look at a few facts about platinum.

• The annual supply of platinum is only about 130 tons.
• It takes 10 tons of ore to produce one ounce of pure platinum.
• All of the platinum ever mined throughout history would fill less than 25 cubic feet.
• Platinum is 11% denser than gold and weighs more than gold. One cubic foot weighs 1,330 pounds.
• Relative to gold and silver, platinum has many more industrial uses.
• More than 50% of platinum is destroyed through industrial use.
• Unlike gold, there are no large above ground inventories of platinum.
• South Africa produces 80% of the world's platinum.

Since its recent low, platinum has had a good run rising from $761.50 on October 27, 2008, to Thursday's close of $1,062.00 per ounce. Like gold, platinum buyers are looking for a safe haven investment. Very often platinum follows gold for this reason.

Gold soared to a new record high Friday on reports that South African mines were halting their operations, due to power supply problems, Bloomberg News reported.

Gold hit a record $924.30 per ounce before pulling back slightly, and was up $14.20 to $920.00 per ounce in mid-day Friday trading.

South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Gold Fields Ltd. and Anglo Platinum Ltd. shut their South African mines because of power problems, Bloomberg News reported. South Africa is the world's No. 2 producer of gold, behind China.

Anglogold (NYSE: AU) is recently trading at $40.90 in pre-open trading, below its close of $45.17 Thursday.

AU said it has halted mining and gold recovery operations on all of its South African operations following notification from state-owned electricity company Eskom regarding interruptions to power supplies.

Gold is recently up 1.82% to $922.30 according to Bloomberg.

AU overall option implied volatility of 50 is above its 26-week average of 39 according to Track Data, suggesting larger movement.

Options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

In unrelenting pursuit of double digit EPS growth for fiscal year 2007, it was announced Friday March 23, that Luxottica Group (NYSE:LUX) had acquired two South African eye wear chains. The reported total expenditure for the dual purchases was $13.4 million. Luxottica says the acquisition fits snugly into the company's strategy of maintaining market dominance, increasing cash flow generation and staying ahead of the eye wear industry growth curve.

Andrea Guerra, Luxottica Group's chief executive officer said that nearly two thirds of the world's population is just beginning to explore the fashion eye wear market. The drivers in the market can be divided into: 1) People attempting to express individuality through choices made in fashion eye wear has never been stronger. 2) As people in emerging economies come to realize the simplicity of vision enhancement through eye wear, they are also coming to grasp the realities of personal expression that fashion eye wear choices can make. 3) As baby-boomers age, there is an ever increasing pool of new clients who are visiting fashion eye wear stores for the very first time.