Latest / Strictly Business Podcast / The 5 o' Clock Shadow with David Shapiro and Viv Govender

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The 5 o' Clock Shadow with David Shapiro and Viv Govender · Strictly Business Podcast

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You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
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The J's, he has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the five
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o'clock shadow.
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And as always on a Thursday, it's the Doubleheader Dream Team edition with Viv
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Govender from RAN Swiss in Johannesburg, award-winning
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RAN Swiss, and David Shapiro from Sassfin Security, sometimes in Johannesburg, now
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speaking to us from
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Manhattan.
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Last night...
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I was doing what I do best, gentlemen.
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It was about 5 past 10 Central European time and South African time.
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And my phone alerted me.
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Now, it was Micron's results just after the market had closed.
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And I looked at the beat of what was expected and what the actual earnings per
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share were.
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And it was a pretty big number.
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But I had no idea that the numbers would be that dramatic.
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OK, that's the first thing.
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Then all the indices that were open, the off-market indices, started rallying.
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And I think the tech index was up about 2.5% at one stage.
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It's not the same as the Nasdaq, but a good indication.
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And then today I look at the Nasdaq, and it's flat.
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And that's because Apple has raised its prices on the iPad and the Mac, and it's
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fallen something like 4.5%, 5%.
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So the Nasdaq's flat.
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The Dow Jones is up 1.5%.
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The personal consumer expenditure number has come in at 3.4% year on year, all in
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line.
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Everything's all over the place.
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David Shapiro, I want to start with your general comments on the...
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end of quarter and end of half year markets?
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Because that's what it feels like to me, jostling.
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I find it remarkable, to be honest.
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And I'm not quite sure what's, have you looked at the market at the moment?
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After an initial bounce on Micron's results, everything is falling,
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particularly in NASDAQ.
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And there's no reason.
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And this is what's puzzling.
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In my mind, and I take it calmly, I'm not getting carried away, I think that markets
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are coming down
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or prices are coming down where they're actually becoming very attractive.
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You know, the excuses or the story is that this is unsustainable.
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Micron's unsustainable.
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Sure, it's unsustainable, but you missed it when it was sustainable.
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In other words, it's gone up so many hundred percent.
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Now people are worried and say, this is unsustainable.
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We've got to get out of this area.
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And they're driving everything down.
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And I'm saying, there's no evidence of this.
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There's nothing to worry about.
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As you mentioned, the PCE is down.
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Things are stable.
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Jobs are being created.
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And I'm not quite sure why everybody wants this wall of panic.
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Even the dollar story is not relevant anymore with Walsh coming in.
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stabilizing things, in other words, not allowing government to spend recklessly.
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So when I put all that together, I say, well, what am I missing?
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This is not irrational exuberance to use the late Alan Greenspan's
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description of markets that were running ahead of themselves.
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So I find it astonishing that there should be this markdown.
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It could be the end, the start of the holiday season.
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Precisely.
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It's getting out.
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It is.
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It's the end of the month, the month, the quarter and the half year.
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There is some jostling because I think you've got when is the last day?
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I think it's Tuesday.
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I think it is of the month.
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So there is some stuff going on, especially after the run that we've had.
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But we'll get to philosophizing on the market with Viv in a moment.
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But Viv, as Mr.
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Micro, and you've got to tell us about those results.
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They were staggeringly good, weren't they?
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Oh, yes.
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I mean, the...
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Micron had come down.
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So we're not quite back to all-time highs on Micron at the moment.
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We are close to it.
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But the actual results came through.
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Micron was expecting a lot.
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They got a lot.
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They're quadrupling of revenue, even much more in terms of the profit increase.
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As David mentioned, basically, there's questions about whether or not this is
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sustainable going forward.
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I would think that the valuations for like NVIDIA, Micron, et cetera, the kind of
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things that have been pushed through the market at the moment,
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that's like looking at, you know, trillions of dollars of revenue coming
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from AI.
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I'm not talking like one or two trillions, I'm talking in excess of 10, maybe $20
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trillion of revenue from AI in the next few years.
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That is the kind of bet the market is making at the moment with the current
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valuations.
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I mean, that is what you need to have to justify these pricings.
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And, you know, that kind of world is a very, very, you know, different world.
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We're talking 20% of global revenue, of global GDP almost.
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going towards or 10% plus of global GDP going towards the AI sector in the next
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couple of years.
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That is an incredible bet.
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And I think despite what the numbers look like, the earnings and stuff coming to
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look like, there's still, I think, a tinge of disbelief among people
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that that's actually what the world will look like in the next few years.
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It's interesting that you say that, and I'm going to pin you down on this one.
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Does that mean to say that you're fearful of what is going on and all the bubble
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talk that surfaced, I think, November, December last year
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from various heads of industry, so-called heads of industry, particularly a couple
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of bankers, talking about the AI bubble, is it
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now becoming a reality?
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Because if the Fed isn't going to cut rates and in fact may raise rates, and
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the...
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Fed governor is a little bit more austere than Donald Trump hopes, then borrowing
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costs go up.
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And if you're borrowing a lot more and the costs go up, the maths are simple.
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Viv, is it that simple?
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Look, I'm actually more fearful of them being right.
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I mean, I think I saw a talk by Aswad Daburad and the other guy that does
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valuations.
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And he said, a world with $17, $20 trillion worth of revenue goes to AI is a
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world in which maybe...
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more than half of our white collar workers are unemployed.
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That is a much more fearful world in terms of risk and uncertainty than anything to
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do with a market crash.
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You know what I mean?
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And I'm pretty much in the belief that that's more than likely to happen.
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I've looked at the AI stuff.
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I have not seen any slowdown in terms of technological improvement.
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I've not seen any, like, you know, hint that there's a wall in front of us.
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All I see is that, you know, every couple of months or every couple of weeks, in
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some cases recently, you get a new thing coming out from AI that says it did
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something that was impossible.
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you know, a few months ago.
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I mean, recently, AI got to the level, which is just barely below, you know,
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Nobel scientist in terms of mathematics.
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Okay, then, sorry, if this brings I've got to get in here when I remembered what I
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want to say, because David and I were having a chat
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on Monday, and we talked about two tier markets, a two tier society, etc, Main
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Street and Wall Street getting further and further
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apart, and so on those tired old stories.
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But what you said, is quite brilliant because the white-collar worker that you
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described not having a job is going to
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say, so what's AI done for me?
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What's AI done for my family?
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What's AI done for society in general?
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It's all very well, these people sitting in their AI ivory towers, but their world
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might be better, but ours is much worse off.
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And David, you're not a socialist, so you wouldn't understand what I've just said.
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Please embellish.
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Please shoot me down.
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You know what?
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I see it completely differently.
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I just see this as a world where these tools are going to actually create new
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employment.
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You know, we're going back to the blacksmith days.
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You know, no jobs for the blacksmiths as we invented motor cars and so on.
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And there wasn't mass unemployment.
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You just had to reorganize yourself.
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You know, Lindsay, in a very small way.
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It's 30 years since the market closed.
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There were traders on the floor who used to go onto the floor and shout.
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We're still trading.
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In fact, we're trading at significantly higher levels than ever.
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And markets are far more sophisticated.
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This might not be a great metaphor or comparison, but that's the way the world
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progresses.
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And I can only talk from my own experience.
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I mean, At my older age, I'm probably three times more productive than I have
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ever been in my life before,
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simply because of the tools and ease of using these tools to help me write
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reports, investigate, so on.
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Yes, I don't need analysts as much as I used to, but those analysts were just
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creating, I don't know, whatever themselves, you
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know.
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I don't know if their worth was all that great to start with.
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I don't I just If the majority of people are not being helped, I mean, people like
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you, yes, and
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a very productive chunk of the world's population, working population will be
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more productive and it will be easier and they'll be
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producing better results and making more money for themselves than the people that
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they work for.
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But if the majority of humankind is not benefiting, then I don't know.
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I don't know if it's all a little bit of a scam.
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You can't take it away now.
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No, no, you're pointing there.
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We're not going to use it.
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No.
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This is going to go.
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But here's the thing.
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I think we need to look at history as well.
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In the industrial revolution, like David said, the blacksmiths weren't working.
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But what happened in Europe, because they had a democracy or at least some
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representation by the people, that they basically did things to ensure that
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there was some employment.
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What they actually did then was they outsourced the pain to the colonies.
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So you look at what happened in the colonies.
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pain was insane.
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So you do, I mean, there's like, I mean, looking into the history of it, and you
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see like, like, you know, like widows in India talking about how they can't compete
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in terms of
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Gandhi was in the loom stuff, you know, that homespun, because that was a, a, an
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after effect of the fact
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that they had mechanized looms now in England.
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And that meant that you couldn't be producing stuff in, in India.
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And therefore, that was that discrepancy.
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But like what Lindsay is saying is correct.
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That's why you're seeing all those people booing at graduations, etc., when people
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talk about AI.
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You know what I mean?
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That's why you're seeing the Google CEO get a walkout, that expert's getting a
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walkout.
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When people that are associated with AI go and talk to...
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what should be the new young leaders of the Western world.
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These are the people that, I mean, these are the Ivy League university graduates.
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They are the next generation of people that are going to be running or should be
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among the elites of the world.
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Yes, they should.
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Lindsay, if we can get rid of investment bankers, I think then there's going to be
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an incredible produce in the air.
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Yeah, it's worth keeping it all going.
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It's worth spending the trillions just to get rid of those scumbags.
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I know what you mean.
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There are certain elements of society that really don't deserve it to be the
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business.
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But very seriously, okay, I don't want to get into a socioeconomic talk.
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Just one point I want to mention, guys, is that when you have these people, the smart
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young people scared, they do bad things.
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It's much more dangerous to have a person that could go to Harvard.
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wanting to do something with the world, that somebody that basically couldn't get
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a high school diploma or works the mind and so on.
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And historically when you have this elite, what they call it, elite overcapacity or
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whatever you call it, they become dangerous.
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And that's why to bring it back to real world things, look at what happened to the
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Democratic Party over the last couple of weeks with their primaries.
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Yesterday, you've got no idea.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And the primaries are going so left wing.
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Why?
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The people driving it are not the Labour people.
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like union workers.
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This is the left-wing guys from the universities who are seeing the world
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tally against them in a way, and they are basically
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looking at doing crazy things, and I think that's the real danger.
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You're going to start finding people that don't believe in prisons, that don't
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believe in all the craziest things you're going to have in the world.
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And the other side, that's why you have a restore.
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That's why you have reform in the UK is getting hit from the right by a restore.
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These are basically people that are going to be scared.
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It's a dangerous ball to be in.
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And unfortunately, we, the ivory towers, like David and I, which are unfortunately
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one of the few people making money,
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we have more people making money for this particular thing.
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We are going to be like, obviously have to deal with that when it comes.
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Okay.
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You brought up a very good point there, which is well worth developing somewhere
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along the line.
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Which we've said about the Democratic Party and the primaries and where it's
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pointing.
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But we'll go into that later.
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I still think the subject that...
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And in terms of employment, this is, I wish, I haven't got those fears.
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Maybe I'm just too old and a bit, not, you know, it's a word I like to go for a run
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in the morning.
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I come back and sit and watch the markets and that, and I don't take it serious.
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I just embrace it.
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And having lived through quite a few changes in my life in terms of how
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industries have
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changed and see, you know, whether or not.
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whether I'm a bit naive and don't realize the extent of how this is going to impact
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the world.
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You know, I'm not sure.
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I have to concede.
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But, I mean, I always find this thrilling, you know, where new industries comes,
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where we
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take fresh approaches to the way that we've done things.
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And I love it.
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That's what makes the market, yeah.
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If there's a pill that is produced by...
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one of the companies you and your clients might or might not be invested in, and it
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says this is a 250-year-old
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pill.
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In other words, you can go for another 250 years, the same length that America has
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been in
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existence, and you will be the same as you are now, and you can go on for that amount
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of time more.
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I suggest you don't take it because you're going to have to put up with hordes of
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unemployed people like me because I would have taken one of the pills,
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by the way, as well as you.
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There'll be hordes of people like me unemployed.
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There'll be mass migration from parts of the world that will no longer be
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inhabitable because of climate change.
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And I'm a progressive.
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I've moved to a huge building which was built 104 years ago, derelict, but it
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won't be soon.
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And it's got thick walls and it's lovely and cool in this weather.
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And in winter, it's insulated from the freezing winters, which will get colder
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and colder.
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And I'm living in a part of the world that isn't yet quite on the edge of that sort
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of migration horror story
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that I've just sketched out.
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But David, things are going to change an awful lot in the, not in our future, but
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in the distant
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future.
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And this is where Viv comes in because he's a forward thinker.
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I want to talk about migration, right?
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I'm currently in Durban.
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I don't know if you know what's happening in Durban at the moment.
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There's about 6,000, I think, Malawians.
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that are leaving and they basically are terrified of this whole,
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there's a thing called March in March.
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Okay.
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It's a, it's a, it's an anti-immigrant kind of thing in, in happening in South
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Africa at the moment where they're giving until the
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30th of June, which is next week, to basically get out of the country or
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they're going to start, I don't know what they're going to do.
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Okay.
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But.
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you drive past by Suncoast, and there is literally like a camp of 6,000 people,
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basically intense here, like an actual refugee kind of situation.
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And these guys are basically getting on these buses to get back to Malawi.
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And that, I think, is something we're going to be seeing going forward, because
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it won't just be the immigrants coming in.
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It'll be the people in your country that are also suffering.
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It won't be a case of, oh, we are wealthy, and people are coming to see us.
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No, it's...
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We are also suffering.
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And then you're going to get the backlash, which is the restores, which is the AFDs,
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which is the Marine Le Pens and et cetera of the world.
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And it's going to be quite bad from that point of view.
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And the way I would phrase is this, right?
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When you look at the last time we had industrial revolution, we had, you know,
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we had the electricity coming about.
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You had world wars.
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You had massive disruptions because of this.
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And you can't have something that affects maybe 10 to 20 percent of global GDP.
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suddenly being created and expect that to just be, you know, we will adjust to it
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peacefully.
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There's going to be trillionaires like Elon Musk, but there will also be massive
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disruptions to livelihoods, to meaning and whatever.
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And people are going to respond to that, unfortunately, in a way that we always
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respond to when we have the threat, which is basically with fear and
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hatred.
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And like I said, I'm in Durban at the moment and I'm just seeing, I can't
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imagine, I couldn't imagine Durban as an
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actual refugee camp next to Suncoast.
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It's a bleak picture, I must say, and I'm glad that we're very unlikely to be
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witnessing it firsthand.
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Now, let's get back to Earth, David, and Apple, because you're an Apple fan.
17:03
I'm an Apple fan.
17:04
The stock's down 5.2% at the moment because they're raising prices.
17:09
That's not a problem, is it?
17:11
Well, it's because the chips are costing a lot more, and there's also a shortage.
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And sometimes companies have to do that.
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I think We've seen it before.
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We've seen Apple under pressure before, you know, where they become more of an
17:27
elitist phone and continue to, you
17:30
know, continue to sell.
17:32
So we'll see what the impact is.
17:33
I just think the market's in a kind of mood where it's edgy, it's
17:40
bored, it's fatigued, whatever.
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You know, that's why I can't make sense of it.
17:47
And sorry to… digress slightly and why I say that, I say what I'm saying, is that
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if I look at
17:53
companies like Microsoft and NVIDIA and businesses like that, and Microsoft's
18:00
on a multiple one-year forward.
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In other words, not the historic.
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If you look historic, it's 30 PE, but one-year forward because we project
18:09
earnings forward.
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It's at a just 21.
18:13
It's not expensive for a company that's whose profits are exceeding that by a
18:19
great deal.
18:21
And if you go down to Microsoft at 18 multiple, wherever we go, those chip
18:26
stocks or those
18:28
magnificent seven, there's nothing rich in any of the valuations apart from the
18:34
Broadcoms and the
18:35
Microns of this world and so on.
18:37
But I'm saying I can't make sense about this.
18:42
It doesn't mean that...
18:44
that NVIDIA is not going to sell another chip again.
18:46
They're going to continue to be dominant in the area and continue to build, you
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know, produce incredible
18:53
amounts of cash and grow their business.
18:56
So that's why I'm a little astonished by the way that the markets, you know, that
19:02
the markets are carrying on the
19:03
way they are at the moment.
19:05
So I'm looking at it more from, okay, you know, this is a nice time to come in
19:10
rather than go out.
19:12
All right.
19:13
So let's have a look at these numbers.
19:15
I just want to read a couple out here.
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Micron up 12%, SanDisk up 15.1%, NVIDIA, Intentional below 200.
19:23
It wasn't that long ago, David, we were talking about it at 220 and why has it
19:27
fallen from 235?
19:28
Now look at it at 195.
19:31
I'm sure it's just shifting of portfolios.
19:32
I'm convinced of it.
19:33
Apple down 5.5%, Intel 2.2%.
19:37
And the list goes on.
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And the aforementioned Microsoft down 3%.
19:41
Thank you.
19:42
But there is one thing I would say, and when you've been in the markets a long
19:45
time, which we all have, you get a feel for markets.
19:48
And on Monday, I said to you, David, didn't I, that the sell-off felt a little
19:52
different this time.
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It wasn't recently, it's been selling off and then bouncing back and then going
19:59
higher than when the sell-off
20:00
started.
20:01
Monday, Tuesday had a little bit of a different feel.
20:04
And the reaction after the Micron results is exactly the same on the NASDAQ.
20:09
It hasn't fulfilled its early promise.
20:12
So I don't know.
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That's just me.
20:14
No, I'm not.
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I'm, you know, I'm cautious generally.
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But it's, you know, for once, in fact, I'm not.
20:22
I'm not.
20:23
put into panic and I'm not buying because I want to prove a point, you know, and
20:28
say, okay, I'll show them I'm going to come in and
20:30
support the market.
20:31
No, you know, genuinely feel that, okay, this is starting to look attractive
20:38
again.
20:39
This is not, I don't feel any of the stress or that wall of worry that the
20:43
market's talking about.
20:45
I certainly don't see it around me at the moment.
20:48
I don't see a US economy that's falling in a heap.
20:53
or any stresses.
20:54
You know, I spoke to you about the advertising and the election, and this is
21:01
not a
21:02
country that's, you know, falling apart.
21:04
I don't know.
21:05
If anything, it looks the opposite.
21:07
It looks like, you know, people want to come here, they want to work, and this is,
21:12
you know, even the dollar.
21:14
I'd far rather hold the dollar than gold or anything else like that, you know, in
21:18
terms of what I'm seeing around me.
21:21
And Lindsay, we can't ignore the World Cup, you know, which is a reflection of
21:27
the success.
21:30
I really have just looked at the stadiums, looked at the crowds, looked at the
21:35
people.
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And I said, OK, this is not a country.
21:37
This is not Russia or China where you're being watched.
21:42
People are parting, genuinely parting.
21:45
And I mean that in a much broader sense.
21:48
Anyway.
21:48
Yes, it is.
21:49
When you see the numbers, when you see the post-World Cup economic numbers, I think
21:53
we'll all be surprised at the impact that it has had on the
21:56
broader economy.
21:58
Obviously, the hospitality and whatever else, people that make food and ice cream
22:04
and stuff,
22:05
beer in particular, are going to have a little bit of a tick up in the numbers.
22:09
But no, it has been a joyous celebration, I must say.
22:11
And one of the reasons I have to attribute it to being so successful is that Trump's
22:15
had nothing to do with it.
22:19
He's interested in people in cages.
22:20
I don't know.
22:22
Viv, before we get on to the numbers, I noticed an inflation report from a South
22:27
African investment bank today, and its headline
22:29
was El Nino confirmed.
22:31
Inflation expectations raised.
22:34
They're raising their expectations, raising their South African Reserve Bank
22:39
interest rate forecast to higher than they were
22:41
before.
22:42
Do you think that's a possibility?
22:43
Do you think El Nino is that important for the region because of, obviously, food
22:47
production?
22:49
Oh, yes.
22:50
And look, the last time we had an El Nino like this year, I think it was 2015.
22:54
And then, I mean, that was really close to the Arab Spring stuff.
22:57
And I mean, I think that if you're looking at what's going to be happening in the
23:01
world, you know, going forward, you
23:04
would have to say that, you know, the situation that we're seeing right now
23:11
is...
23:11
actually really dangerous because we basically had a
23:18
disruption not just to the energy prices, but also to fertilizer.
23:22
And now we're going to have a significant weather disruption as well occurring.
23:28
It's going to cause flooding in some areas, it's going to cause droughts in
23:31
other areas.
23:32
And then if you look at what the scientists are saying about this
23:34
particular alanine, it's not just an alanine, it's a super alanine as they're
23:37
terming it.
23:38
That means it's a very, very bad one.
23:41
And, you know, it's going to be, I think, quite impactful in terms of world food
23:45
production, especially as we see, you know, what's
23:48
happening with regards to fertilizer.
23:50
The one good point, apparently, is that the Europeans are going to be insulated
23:54
from this because you guys have put through or were going to put through a
23:57
carbon tax.
23:58
And some of the farmers have been out and stockpiled.
24:00
So they have like, you know, like a couple of years worth of stockpiled fertilizer
24:03
that's going to buffer them against this thing.
24:05
But in much of the rest of the world, that's not going to be the case.
24:09
Okay, I think we've covered a lot of things now.
24:10
So let's get back down to the daily reality of the markets where the dollar
24:14
round is 1649.
24:16
That's with a weaker dollar.
24:17
I'll come to that in a second.
24:19
The British pound against the round is 2177.
24:21
The euro round 1876.
24:23
The euro dollar is 11380.
24:26
It was pushing 113 24 hours ago.
24:29
The gold price has bounced back from being below 4000 to just being over 4000 by $14.
24:35
It's 4014.
24:37
up a little bit.
24:38
That's because of the weakness in the US dollar.
24:40
It's a dollar proxy again at the moment, gold that is.
24:44
Platinum had a horrible day yesterday, as did all the white metals.
24:48
Platinum is currently $15.94, which is up $12 or three quarters of a percent.
24:53
And palladium is up around about 1%.
24:55
Now, the all-important oil price, which as soon as that little straight of Hormuz was
25:00
opened, that thing
25:01
just fell in a heap.
25:03
It's recovering somewhat.
25:06
today with west texas crude 71.61 which is 1.8 percent higher brent crude oil is one
25:12
and a third up
25:13
that's 74 and 71 cents per pound one day we'll say gosh goodness me just like
25:19
nvidia
25:20
that oil price was a bargain copper back above six dollars a pound six dollars and
25:25
seven and a half cents per pound in new york up
25:27
two and a quarter percent some interesting numbers on the u.s treasury market.
25:32
The US 10-year now below 440.
25:35
at 4.38%.
25:37
That's after that PCE number that we spoke about earlier on.
25:40
The S&P 500 futures, 74.23.
25:43
The S&P now down on the day very slightly.
25:46
That's the September futures number I've just given you.
25:48
South African 10-year bond is 8.37%, following the yields in the United States.
25:54
And that is not a bad move.
25:56
Seven and a half basis points down for the yield, up for the bond market.
26:00
And finally, Bitcoin.
26:02
I mean, we'll be talking about this and saying, is it a buy at 20,000?
26:06
Is it a buy at 25?
26:08
It's 59,344.
26:10
And bear in mind that the 52 week low on this thing is 58,131.
26:17
So we're just above the 52 week low.
26:19
And in October, when Trump and his family announced their crypto ventures, it was
26:24
125,000.
26:28
That's what I've got to say for it.
26:29
David, JSE today, please.
26:31
I'll give you some ups and downs, but it had to bounce back after a terrible day
26:37
yesterday.
26:38
It was up about a percent, just under a percent.
26:42
We're still down about 3% or 4% on the year, and that's largely because of the
26:47
gold and platinum.
26:48
And gold's over 20% down from the peak that it reached at the
26:55
time of the war.
26:56
I think platinum's down even more.
26:58
So it's had a considerable impact on our market.
27:01
But there's a little bit of a bounce today, as you mentioned.
27:04
So the all-chair index is up 1%.
27:06
Resource index up around about 2.25%, driven up by a little bit of a recovery in
27:13
platinum
27:13
and gold markets.
27:16
Your bank index is up quite nicely, up about 1.25%, which has lifted the
27:21
financial and industrial index.
27:23
And the industrial index also up around about a half.
27:26
So Green Day today, value traded around about 24 billion and so on.
27:31
But more gainers than losers, particularly in the gold and platinum and
27:38
mining sectors.
27:39
Yeah, the top two winners on the board today, Impala Platinum and Valterra, which
27:43
is the old Anglo-American platinum, of course.
27:45
And number three was a white metal miner as well, Northern Platinum, up just over
27:50
4% on the downside to Geller Sassel.
27:53
Gosh, that's now 167.
27:54
That's down another 4.4% today.
27:56
That was a brief moment in the sun for that one.
27:59
And Sun International, speaking of Sun, Sun International down 2.4%.
28:03
Gentlemen, that was a fascinating chat.
28:05
Maybe, David, we should develop the American political theme a little bit next
28:10
week.
28:11
Because will that be a market-moving event if it does go way left?
28:15
I mean, even left of the left.
28:16
There's a lot to talk.
28:18
You know, there's a lot to talk about.
28:21
You know, I think that Trump has lost a huge amount of his bite.
28:26
I don't think he's going to make the midterms.
28:28
But you've got massive issues on both sides.
28:31
And I think just looking at the primaries here in New York, these are all Mamdani.
28:38
Or to give you another figure, these are all Bernie Sanders.
28:42
So, you know, these are the people that support Bernie Sanders.
28:48
In the past in New York.
28:50
if you were anti-Israel, you wouldn't make it to mayor, you wouldn't make it, you
28:56
know, you
28:57
certainly wouldn't be elected.
28:59
Now that's a curse.
29:00
And you're finding that, you know, the call now is, you know, pro-Palestinian,
29:07
anti-Israel.
29:08
So that's the swing that has taken.
29:10
That's not, I'm not choosing sides.
29:12
I'm merely mentioning these are the, this is where the electioneering is.
29:17
And what's interested, and I think Viv or brought it up.
29:22
It's strangely young people that are voting for these candidates.
29:29
It's not the black voter and it's not the trade unionist.
29:34
It's very young people.
29:35
And what they're doing, Lindsay, effectively is they're going out and
29:39
canvassing and getting people to vote.
29:41
Because by and large, people don't vote here, certainly in the primaries and that.
29:46
And that's how these people are being elected.
29:48
That's what Mamdani did.
29:50
getting out onto the street and getting youngsters and soliciting, I mean,
29:55
encouraging people to vote is a better way
29:57
to say it.
29:58
But the politics are changing.
29:59
The Democratic Party is, you know, I don't know if they know where to go.
30:05
And they will take the House.
30:08
Yes, okay.
30:09
What I'm going to try and do then is get someone to come in and speak to us.
30:12
Viv, are you up for this?
30:13
Viv, is this market moving enough for you to warrant your attention as well,
30:17
American politics?
30:19
Definitely, because, I mean, I don't know if you saw, for instance, the CGT change
30:23
that happened in Australia,
30:27
where they changed CGT from what we have in South Africa from 50% inclusion to one
30:31
where you basically paid, like, income tax with
30:34
an inflation adjustment.
30:35
No, I didn't see that.
30:36
And why is that?
30:38
Yeah, and this is the kind of stuff that's going to be happening.
30:40
There's two things that shift the market.
30:41
It's interest rates and it's taxation.
30:43
And this stuff is going to push taxation.
30:45
What does Mamdani want?
30:46
He wants a wild tax.
30:46
He wants the peer-to-peer tax for things.
30:50
Bernie Sanders wants to confiscate half of AI companies.
30:54
Okay, this is, I mean, I'm not saying like weird stuff.
30:57
This is like stated policy.
30:58
You start getting real disruption in the U.S.
31:01
labor market.
31:02
You start getting these rich people or rich people, but young people, you know,
31:06
from elite backgrounds.
31:08
I'm scared.
31:08
And you're going to have people coming into power that you did not imagine was
31:11
possible a few years ago.
31:13
And that's going to be taxation.
31:14
That's going to be shifts.
31:16
I mean, look at California's wealth tax.
31:18
I mean, there's a wealth tax movement in the French wealth tax.
31:22
There's one in the UK as well with the Green Party.
31:25
Yeah, this is really going to be market moving.
31:27
Definitely.
31:28
Great.
31:28
We'll set something up.
31:29
Gentlemen, thank you.
31:30
It was a fascinating chat.
31:31
And just if you're worried about the Bernie Sanders of this world.
31:34
Whenever I hear Bernie Sanders, I think of the name Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader
31:37
of the Labour Party, who was anti-Semitic,
31:41
where he was always portrayed as an anti-Semite.
31:44
And he was far, far left, not as left as Sanders and Mamdani.
31:48
But anyway, he amounted to nothing.
31:51
So don't worry.
31:51
Gentlemen, thanks so much for your time.
31:54
Again, Viv Govender is from Rannswiss, sometimes in Johannesburg at the moment in
31:58
Durban.
31:59
And David Shapiro from Sasson Securities.
32:02
Very rarely in Johannesburg, now in Manhattan.
32:05
And that was the 5 o'clock shadow.
32:07
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