Latest / Strictly Business Podcast / The 5 o' Clock Shadow with Schalk Louw
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
- 0:05JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the five o'clock shadow.
- 0:09And as always, on a Wednesday, I speak to Skulk Lowe, Portfolio Manager at PSG
- 0:15Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town.
- 0:17What a day it's been, Skulk.
- 0:19And I sort of gravitate towards the commodities page of my system here rather
- 0:24than the stock
- 0:26indices, because I know what they're going to be doing.
- 0:28They're going to be going up.
- 0:30When the war's on, they go sideways or up.
- 0:32And when the war's off, they go up.
- 0:34It's very simple.
- 0:36So it's not a difficult market.
- 0:38But the gold and the oil and everything.
- 0:40Who'd be a commodities trader?
- 0:42What fun.
- 0:44Oh, boy.
- 0:46I mean, it's, yeah, you said what a day it's been.
- 0:48But, I mean, what a year it's been thus far.
- 0:49I mean, it's just crazy the volatility that we've had.
- 0:53And, yeah, you mentioned it.
- 0:56If you...
- 0:57You're a trader and you like markets to go up a lot,
- 1:01drop back a lot and then go up a lot again.
- 1:04Then, yeah, this market is definitely for you.
- 1:07But, yeah, definitely not for orphans and widows, for sure.
- 1:11Just the oil price.
- 1:12There's no orphans and widows if you're in the oil market because it was bowling
- 1:18along, Brent crude that is,
- 1:20at around about 110, 111.
- 1:23It drifted down to 108, 109.
- 1:25Then the announcement came out from a company called Axios, a news agency called
- 1:30Axios,
- 1:32that they'd got a one-page memo, one page after all this time and all this death and
- 1:38all this destruction,
- 1:40a one-page memorandum of understanding between Iran and America.
- 1:44And I thought, no, wait a second, one page?
- 1:47You're going to fix it with just a few scribbled notes?
- 1:50I didn't believe it.
- 1:52The oil traders did believe it, took oil down to a low of $96.77.
- 1:58And now it's back up sort of mid-range at the moment.
- 2:01So it doesn't know whether to go back to the highs or back to the lows or even
- 2:05lower.
- 2:06It's fascinating.
- 2:07As for gold, again, it follows the dollar.
- 2:09The euro-dollar loses about three-quarters of a percent and gold goes through the
- 2:14roof.
- 2:15Yeah.
- 2:16I mean, that's something that I...
- 2:20Beautifully.
- 2:22But just look at these movements.
- 2:25I mean, if you look at, for instance, Sasol, you were talking about the world
- 2:32price and how it retraced.
- 2:34Suddenly, we had the dollar weakening again and the gold price is gone.
- 2:39And you've got the likes of Anglo Gold 5% up.
- 2:46Goldfields, look at this.
- 2:47I mean, what a boy.
- 2:50Close to 9%, 9% up.
- 2:53Harmony, 10% up.
- 2:55Durban Riddipur Deep came out with a sense announcement or trading update this
- 2:59morning.
- 2:59They're up 8, you know, 0.3%.
- 3:03But then on the inverse side, you've got the likes of Sasol.
- 3:06Sasol down 7.3% today.
- 3:11Yesterday was up close to 3%.
- 3:16Last week, we also had a similar...
- 3:20And suddenly Trump comes out with a true social, or in this case, some optimism.
- 3:26We go from Project Epic Fury to Project Freedom.
- 3:32Yeah, Epic Fury, Project Freedom.
- 3:34What was the Venezuela one?
- 3:35I can't remember what that one was.
- 3:37And I can't remember what the initial bombing of Iran was called either.
- 3:41It was some silly name that someone comes up with.
- 3:44But anyway, yes, you're quite right.
- 3:46Project Freedom lasted for a day.
- 3:50He wants out of this war, doesn't he?
- 3:53I don't think he wants out of it.
- 3:55I think he's getting pressured to get out of it ASAP.
- 3:58I mean, let's just take a country, one of his bigger trading partners, one of
- 4:06NATO country, and one of the countries that's been fairly supportive.
- 4:11And here I'm referring to Australia.
- 4:14Australia yesterday, they had a rate...
- 4:19uh increase um third one in a row now and and now they interest rates are
- 4:26effectively
- 4:28back to to where it was before they started the rate cuts so pretty much
- 4:33the highest levels again since since covid so so that's i mean i i think i if
- 4:39you go to a general australian today and say what do they think of uh
- 4:45the war and what did I think about the US, I don't think you're going to have, you
- 4:51know, polite comments coming from, from, from,
- 4:53from down under.
- 4:55So, and I think that's, that's just one country.
- 4:57And I've been watching a lot of these, these, you know, yesterday I watched a,
- 5:02a interview with, with the French prime minister.
- 5:07You could see it's sort of a, they need to content themselves not to really speak
- 5:14their mind.
- 5:16So I don't think his popularity globally is looking good,
- 5:21but more importantly his popularity in the US.
- 5:26Because those people need to go to the gas stations and fill up their muscle cars as
- 5:33well.
- 5:33I can tell you they're not going to be.
- 5:36He was boasting of gas, as they call it, gasoline,
- 5:41petrol to us price.
- 5:43He was boasting of petrol prices at $1.80 a gallon.
- 5:47And that was when he was on a rally in Iowa or Idaho or somewhere.
- 5:50I can't remember.
- 5:51It began with an I.
- 5:52So forgive me if you're listening from either of those places.
- 5:56But anyway, it wasn't.
- 5:57He was wrong.
- 5:58But that's where he is expected.
- 6:02Petrol prices to be in the United States, sub $2, and now they're $4.50 to $5.
- 6:07I don't know what it'll be today.
- 6:08They'll adjust them tomorrow because of today's moves.
- 6:10But let's call it $4.50.
- 6:13So more than twice what Trump was talking about.
- 6:16Two and a half times, in fact, what Trump was talking about.
- 6:19So, yeah, his popularity is down the tubes.
- 6:22In talking about NATO allies, of course, it was Friedrich Metz, the German leader,
- 6:29Chancellor Metz.
- 6:31He is the one that really...
- 6:33really annoyed Mr.
- 6:35Trump by saying that Iran has humiliated the United States.
- 6:36The United States had no strategy.
- 6:37The United States didn't know when to end the war.
- 6:40He said all these things in a very measured way.
- 6:44He wasn't being petty like Trump is when he attacks someone.
- 6:47And, of course, the first thing Trump does is he says, OK, 25%
- 6:54increase on tariffs for EU cars.
- 6:58And also we're pulling 5,000 troops out of Germany. That is what you're dealing with
- 7:05here, tit-for-tat pettiness.
- 7:07Yeah.
- 7:09And you got me into watching Jimmy Kimmel.
- 7:13Isn't he brilliant?
- 7:15Oh, man.
- 7:16To all the listeners out there, you know, besides listening to your Strictly
- 7:21Business podcast,
- 7:23you're an absolute must every day.
- 7:24And yeah, Lindsay got me into this.
- 7:27I do not.
- 7:28end a day without watching Jimmy Kimmel and it's live you go into
- 7:33YouTube listen as you don't have to subscribe to anything you can actually
- 7:39watch him live it is
- 7:41hilarious it is the most funny thing but but the worst of all everything
- 7:46Jimmy Kimmel brewing every single evening is
- 7:51the whole harder truth it is just crazy to think you know what this person
- 7:58can get up to.
- 7:59I mean, the one thing, I don't know if you watched, I think it was last night or the
- 8:04previous night,
- 8:06we mentioned when it took its time, it was something like half past 10 in the evening
- 8:09until half past 11.
- 8:11Over that hour...
- 8:13Yes, he went through all his Truth Social posts.
- 8:1411 of them.
- 8:15At 11.03 he did this, at 11.06 he did that.
- 8:18Yes, I watched that yesterday.
- 8:19Very, very clever the way he dissects it.
- 8:21He's got a team of writers.
- 8:24It's not just Kimmel, but Kimmel presents...
- 8:27Kimmel's part of the team, but he presents it so beautifully.
- 8:30And he's got it with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face when he does it.
- 8:34He's not bitter.
- 8:35He's not twisted.
- 8:36He's not nasty.
- 8:38Although you could imagine that he wants to be, and behind closed doors he is.
- 8:42It's pure cleverness, I think.
- 8:45But also, according to Trump, he's not funny either.
- 8:49He's shockingly funny.
- 8:51He's shockingly funny.
- 8:53But the one thing he mentioned in that, and that's good.
- 8:56we said, you know, if this was some relative, it was a grandmother or mother,
- 9:02you know,
- 9:04tweeting this amount of obscurities, or just this amount of tweets over a one-hour
- 9:08period.
- 9:10It was 11 of them over a one-hour period.
- 9:11You would address the issue.
- 9:13Of course.
- 9:15You would call that person and say, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma.
- 9:20Stop it now.
- 9:21Yeah, you know.
- 9:23borderline schizophrenic.
- 9:25Come on, you need to now turn it down.
- 9:27I mean, this is the president of the largest economy in the world.
- 9:31Oh, man.
- 9:32But yeah, that's all the listeners to do.
- 9:37Go and watch Jimmy Kimmel.
- 9:38But what I want to get to is how things can change.
- 9:41I mean, we went into this morning, I got up, usually I get up around about 5
- 9:47o'clock,
- 9:495.60.
- 9:51And then I start reading.
- 9:53I look at what happened um You know, overnight,
- 9:53I will usually go and see what's going on in the East, more specifically China.
- 9:59And then I'll get a broad idea of what this day will look like.
- 10:02So I open up and I see Tencent.
- 10:04That's down.
- 10:062% on that stage.
- 10:08Oil was hovering.
- 10:09Things were just not going anywhere.
- 10:11I thought, oh, this is going to be another one of those days.
- 10:13It's Naspers, Bosa's going to be down.
- 10:16And it doesn't seem like there's going to be some action on the precious metals.
- 10:21We should see a red day.
- 10:23And man, there's one pager.
- 10:25The memorandum of intent to end the war.
- 10:28We are so close.
- 10:29You know, Project Freedom.
- 10:32And there we go.
- 10:33We ended this day.
- 10:35Whop.
- 10:36What a day.
- 10:37When last did we see the top 40 being up 4%?
- 10:43That is a big move.
- 10:44I mean, it's not as if it's coming off a low base.
- 10:47It's suddenly bouncing back off after being shattered.
- 10:51This is off a high, high base.
- 10:53So 4% is a really, really big move.
- 10:56But of course, everything not so good for South Africa on the inflation front.
- 11:00I believe that your car is going to cost you quite, I don't know what you drive,
- 11:04I'm not going to ask.
- 11:06But I imagine it's going to cost you quite a lot more to fill it up.
- 11:08Yeah, yeah.
- 11:09I mean, we'll be looking at three-odd-rand petrol, close to six-rand.
- 11:14Luckily, they made a bit of a typo there.
- 11:16So close to six-rand on diesel as from today.
- 11:20So if you're still thinking of rushing to the petrol station and trying to fill
- 11:27up, it's done.
- 11:28It's dusted.
- 11:29You are paying that more now.
- 11:33And, you know,
- 11:34we should still be grateful to a certain extent because the government,
- 11:41we're still getting subsidized that three rand levy, three rand per liter levy on
- 11:47both diesel and oil.
- 11:49So even if we see a no change in the rent oil
- 11:54price over the next, let's call it 30 odd days or 24 days, then the…
- 12:01Petrol price will go up again.
- 12:03So hopefully this memorandum for intent, this one pager, could see that the oil
- 12:09price, you know,
- 12:11continue going stronger.
- 12:13And that could be better because Kachaniahu, I mean,
- 12:16he made it blatantly clear two days ago that they're going to have no choice.
- 12:23If this is where things are going to stay, if, as you mentioned, the inflation rate
- 12:30is going to pressure upwards again, they're going to have no choice.
- 12:32at the next meeting.
- 12:34to increase the South African interest rates, very similar to what Australia has
- 12:37done as well.
- 12:37I don't think it's sort of a, if it's going to happen,
- 12:41I know they were slow out of the blocks to reduce rates, you know, compared to some
- 12:47of these other countries.
- 12:49So they maybe have some play.
- 12:50But I mean, I do think that that's the only weapon.
- 12:55I've got a problem with that, Lindsay.
- 12:57I mean, I seriously got a problem with it.
- 12:59We've often had this conversation.
- 13:01because The South African Reserve Bank can take the interest rates up to 25% now,
- 13:08and it will have zero effect on what's happening on the Strait of Hormuz, the oil
- 13:15price, and ultimately our inflation rate.
- 13:17Have a zero effect, yet you're going to sort of punish the South Africans, you're
- 13:21going to punish the South African economy,
- 13:23because that's the only, let's call it, weapon in your...
- 13:25I always think that when you look at inflation, OK, you've got to look at core
- 13:32inflation and you've got to look at headline inflation as well.
- 13:34My argument has always been that if the petrol price goes up quite sharply, as it
- 13:38has done in South Africa,
- 13:40then that's an inelastic demand.
- 13:41It doesn't matter.
- 13:42You've still got to take your kids to school.
- 13:44You've still got to get in a taxi to go to work.
- 13:47And that taxi has to put petrol in the taxi and he or she pays more.
- 13:51So you've got to...
- 13:53they've got to put their prices up.
- 13:54So that's money coming out of your pocket.
- 13:57Now, if you have a fixed budget every month, if you're lucky enough to have
- 14:04enough money not to worry about it, that's a small percentage of the population.
- 14:06But most of the population says, OK, well, there's
- 14:0850 rand a week that I'm paying extra for travel.
- 14:12That's got to come out of somewhere, so I'll cut out this.
- 14:15And if you cut out that, that reduces demand in the rest of the economy or
- 14:22sectors of the rest of the economy.
- 14:24So that suppresses inflation, doesn't it?
- 14:25Maybe not to the extent of the oil price going up because it has a bigger
- 14:30weighting.
- 14:32But you see my argument here.
- 14:34Demand is reduced because of the oil price going up.
- 14:35Yeah, no, no, no, for sure.
- 14:37I had a conversation with somebody last night and he actually went on like this.
- 14:44I don't know what poll did he take.
- 14:46But it basically came down that they can already see that people are
- 14:52Not driving like they used to, not going out as they used to.
- 14:56And that's because the petrol prices are...
- 15:01Yes, I think it's...
- 15:03It's a very, very sad situation because we went into 2026 not thinking in terms of
- 15:10rate hikes.
- 15:12We were thinking of how many rate cuts we could have in 2026, which could help our
- 15:18economy.
- 15:18Remember, we went in, the IMF had us in January at 1.4 percent.
- 15:23And you and I still have that conversation.
- 15:24So, well, 1.4, that's really disappointing.
- 15:27disappointing.
- 15:28I mean, they're getting more optimistic and they actually increased us to 1.4%.
- 15:33Well, that's been decreased two weeks ago to 1% again.
- 15:37And if we're going to see rate hikes in 2026,
- 15:44I'm going to look at that 1% and say we're going to be lucky getting that.
- 15:47But yeah.
- 15:48I think you're right.
- 15:49Anyway.
- 15:49Anyway, just before we get to the numbers, because we've had a good chat to start
- 15:55with, we didn't even get into
- 15:57where the gold price is going, because that's a sort of a futile argument, I
- 16:02think, or a futile conversation.
- 16:04I just want you to look at the narrowness of the market,
- 16:04because 2026 was lauded as the year where the market broadened, the bull market
- 16:11broadened,
- 16:13because the 2025 bull market, good bull market it was, in the United States I'm
- 16:17talking about now, was terribly,
- 16:19terribly narrow.
- 16:21I think it's got even narrower now, Scalp, with that.
- 16:22NASDAQ going above 25,000 for the first time and keeping on going.
- 16:26And my question to you, if you want to prepare yourself for a bigger answer next
- 16:32week, very good.
- 16:34Is there now a bubble in tech, big tech in the United States of America?
- 16:39Or are we just in the early stages of something that we've never seen before,
- 16:44i.e.
- 16:46a market that just keeps on carrying on because AI keeps on carrying on as well?
- 16:49I just think that when companies, a group of companies,
- 16:52collectively are spending nearly a trillion dollars on capex in one year i
- 16:59don't know can it be
- 17:01justified can their share prices stay where they are yeah it's a it's an
- 17:06interesting
- 17:06one because
- 17:08uh mr shapiro myself we had a we had a conversation today and and i said i
- 17:15told him i need to eat some humble pie um he says why he said well i often diss you
- 17:21because
- 17:22you know, I mean, it's a mutual friend.
- 17:24And you know he is absolutely love for these.
- 17:26He's these AI semiconductors.
- 17:30I mean, it's just, I mean, it doesn't matter what the price, he'll just keep on
- 17:35buying them.
- 17:35Anyway, I told him, I have to eat some humble pie because over the past three
- 17:41weeks,
- 17:41I've started to venture into dabbling around with some bit of coding because I
- 17:49do code a bit.
- 17:50But I dabbled into these AI models, and not just your CLAUDs, your chat GPTs,
- 17:57you know, some of these local models.
- 17:58So I'm starting to use them now as I work on your computer.
- 18:02And I think I got to about day two,
- 18:06and then suddenly this AI started talking to me, and he said, well, Scott,
- 18:12you need to look at your hardware.
- 18:14We can't run these things that you want to be doing.
- 18:19I said, Andreas, well, wait a minute.
- 18:21I've got a monster of a PC.
- 18:24What do I need?
- 18:25No, you need, let's call it 32 gig RAM.
- 18:32Yes. I remember two, three years ago when I bought a PC and also a laptop,
- 18:38I sort of flinched when it said, well, you'll need about,
- 18:43let's call it for every eight gig you'll need, it'll cost you about eight, 900
- 18:49grand.
- 18:51Let's call it 1,000 Rand.
- 18:53Lindsay, 32 gig will cost you now 15,000 to 16,000 Rand.
- 18:58Just a little bit of RAM.
- 19:00That's not any graphic.
- 19:02What are you doing with this, Carl?
- 19:04You said you're playing around.
- 19:05What are you playing around with?
- 19:07Is it just to test it just because you're curious or because it's something that is
- 19:12good for PSG wealth?
- 19:14No, the latter.
- 19:16The latter.
- 19:16But also, you know, I love my...
- 19:18My statistical models, I run a lot of screeners.
- 19:22And you can actually use these, let's call it models.
- 19:29And when I say models, Claude,
- 19:33they've got a few models in one called Sonnet.
- 19:37And the one is Opus.
- 19:39And the one that created Havoc a few weeks ago is Mythos.
- 19:42But you also get local models that run on your computer.
- 19:47You can...
- 19:48You can train it.
- 19:50You can train it to run some of your spreadsheets, you know, run around some of
- 19:54your screeners,
- 19:56and it's quite powerful.
- 19:58um it's not that does it do stuff that you i'm sorry i'm curious here because i've
- 20:05had this sort of same conversation with that person you were talking about
- 20:07earlier on and what does he use it for um it's not as sophisticated as what you're
- 20:12doing but my
- 20:14question to you is does it do what you you did before yourself manually as a human
- 20:18being better
- 20:20and quicker or does it do something else?
- 20:21Does it do exactly what I've just said?
- 20:24Plus, it's...
- 20:25changes things it makes you think about oh wait a second i should maybe do it this
- 20:32way and it's changed my opinion on this
- 20:34if you see where i'm going with this yeah yeah originally originally you know the
- 20:40model sort of executed what you ask it to do
- 20:42but but some of these models now actually improve some
- 20:44of my my my own models it will look at at certain things well you need to look at
- 20:51this.
- 20:51You need to look at those.
- 20:55It's really improving.
- 20:58It's making my work quicker and definitely more efficient.
- 21:03But do not for one second think it's something you go sit and say, well, there
- 21:07we go.
- 21:08It's like a chat GPT and say, make my life more sufficient and five minutes later it
- 21:12is.
- 21:12It's not.
- 21:13And where I want to get to, it firstly takes a lot of time to train these models,
- 21:18but that I've got.
- 21:22I don't have kids in the house anymore.
- 21:23So that commodity I still got.
- 21:27But the thing was the hardware resources.
- 21:31And you just, for the life of it,
- 21:34cannot run these models without the proper hardware resources.
- 21:39And then I realized, wait a minute.
- 21:41Me, Scott, just a general guy from some point of Africa,
- 21:45if I'm struggling to start doing the things that…
- 21:51that I need to be executed, then a lot of companies out there,
- 21:57they're sitting with way bigger problems.
- 21:58And that's why we've got such a shortage in these chips.
- 22:02And my question was, when I started putting my mind around this, I was
- 22:08thinking, well, okay,
- 22:10yes, eventually the shortage will deplete because there will be less
- 22:16demand and more...
- 22:21supply.
- 22:24And then I realized, well, how's that going to change?
- 22:26Because the same morning on the local radio station, the commentator,
- 22:32they did a poll and they did a poll with teenagers and they
- 22:39actually said, well, which subscription, cell phone subscription, do you use the
- 22:46most?
- 22:46And I was thinking, well, there were...
- 22:50If you're talking about this, I was thinking, yeah, it'll be something like a
- 22:56Spotify or
- 22:58maybe YouTube, you know, there's something.
- 23:01No, it is AI, AI, your chat GPTs.
- 23:05The teenagers these days are throwing themselves towards the chat GPTs, the
- 23:12Claudes, the co-pilots,
- 23:14the Gemini.
- 23:16That's it, that's it.
- 23:18And the deeper they, and this is only about the start.
- 23:20I mean, they're only starting this process.
- 23:22This is not a thing that is sort of a product that's at the end
- 23:29of its life.
- 23:30It's at the beginning of its life cycle.
- 23:32The teenagers are now starting to switch their Spotify's and their Instagram's
- 23:39and TikTok's for AI.
- 23:41And that's crazy to think.
- 23:44It's crazy to think how's this shortage going to catch up?
- 23:48And then it brings me back to the likes of the Navidias, the AMD.
- 23:51We saw AMD today.
- 23:52I mean, wow, gee, what a
- 23:59Set of results, first of all, and then performance in the pre-market.
- 24:03I don't know what it's done in the real market, but it must be quite good from the
- 24:07way you're talking enthusiastically.
- 24:09What has it done?
- 24:11About 5%, 6% higher?
- 24:13More?
- 24:15I'm actually I'm putting it in now to see what's the current because earlier today
- 24:16was let's just have a full sec.
- 24:18Here we go.
- 24:23I can hear you typing.
- 24:26I'm not that good.
- 24:29Okay, let's see.
- 24:31There we go.
- 24:32AMD.
- 24:33AMD.
- 24:35It is up 17.5%.
- 24:38Get out.
- 24:39Yes, yes.
- 24:42And I thought, David, I mean, I'm...
- 24:49About to eat some humble pie.
- 24:51I will be talking about Shapiro now.
- 24:52Yeah.
- 24:53Yeah.
- 24:54Yeah.
- 24:54I am really really Really still know why the process there and and I've done it
- 25:00over the shorter,
- 25:02too So so I think for the listeners out there
- 25:03I'm not going to be rushing out and now going to buy your AMDs and the VDS.
- 25:08They are trading at elevated levels, for sure.
- 25:11Really elevated levels.
- 25:12Yes, but this is the point about Shapiro, and I don't want to talk about him too
- 25:18much, except with a lot of affection,
- 25:20because he's a riddle wrapped up in a conundrum.
- 25:23Because he's old school, right?
- 25:25He learned his trade on the JSC floor in the old way,
- 25:30it was trading or Portfolio Management 101.
- 25:37If a forward P or the current P of a company in this particular sector is this,
- 25:43historically it goes down.
- 25:45I said to him the other day, if your father looked at your portfolio now for
- 25:52you and your clients, he'd probably be horrified, wouldn't he?
- 25:54He said, well, yeah, some of these things are too high.
- 25:54And I said, well, at what point do you get out?
- 25:57He said, I'm not going to get out until I... And Until it starts to turn.
- 26:04In other words, just go with the flow.
- 26:06It doesn't matter why it's going up, it's just going up.
- 26:09And he and Viv Govender, the other person I speak to, I speak to the three of them
- 26:13together,
- 26:14they're both completely into this now, so much so that I don't think that they can
- 26:19get out,
- 26:19and they've been quite right in that regard.
- 26:22And as you said, you ate humble pie.
- 26:24But what I'm saying is he's sort of not thrown away,
- 26:28but he's pushed aside what he learnt and has adapted.
- 26:32to what is going on.
- 26:33He's adapted to the current situation.
- 26:36Yeah.
- 26:37Yeah, it's but it's same goes for my gold call.
- 26:42I mean, I had the same conversation today.
- 26:44I told them
- 26:47I started buying gold again yesterday because it's definitely that the business
- 26:52thesis,
- 26:54very similar to the business thesis for the semiconductors, the business thesis
- 26:58for gold is still there.
- 27:00And I think Durban would have put deep.
- 27:01If we can maybe bring it back for a second to some of the...
- 27:05Its trading update came out today or it was...
- 27:09I saw an announcement early this morning.
- 27:12Correct, correct.
- 27:13They did a quarterly update, which is a quite strange force at African company,
- 27:18because African companies usually do six months, but they did a quarterly update up
- 27:23to the end of
- 27:2431st of March and I don't think it's going to be any surprises that it really looked
- 27:29good.
- 27:29But what stood out for me...
- 27:31was a few things in this update.
- 27:33So firstly, when you look at their oil and sustainable cost, and they're still one of
- 27:39the more expensive mines,
- 27:41oil and sustainable cost just over $2,000 per ounce.
- 27:45They mentioned that they're sitting with zero debt now,
- 27:49and they're actually now in the position to cover their total capex with just
- 27:55normal cash flow
- 27:57as it stands.
- 27:59I wonder when it was that they could last say that, if ever.
- 28:01Ever.
- 28:02I don't think ever, ever that that was the case.
- 28:06And that tells me that, firstly, these companies are pumping cash.
- 28:12And I would not be surprised if these, let's call it gold, remain at these
- 28:18current levels.
- 28:20And that'll go for some of the PGMs because you saw Sabania Stillwater, very
- 28:24similar update as well today.
- 28:26I mean, wow, what a move for them as well.
- 28:30It's a very similar story where they're sitting with such a massive amount of free
- 28:36cash flow now.
- 28:38If they don't start to employ this cash,
- 28:40we're going to start seeing massive dividends being paid by these miners,
- 28:46which also is something that…
- 28:48Both our grey hair combined is never seen.
- 28:52The rules have all changed in the last 12 months.
- 28:56It's been great fun and it will continue to be so.
- 28:59It hasn't ended yet.
- 29:00I mean, what is it now?
- 29:00It's only May, for goodness sake.
- 29:03Skunk, I'm going to have to give you some numbers because we've been rambling on
- 29:09very, very enjoyably and I think very intelligently as well.
- 29:11It's surprising.
- 29:13You've actually got my mind going today.
- 29:1516.42 is the dollar round.
- 29:17British pound against the round is 22.32.
- 29:18The round in the ascendancy against the, what have we got here?
- 29:24Yeah, a 1% move for the dollar down against the round.
- 29:29That's the way I should put it.
- 29:31The dollar has fallen against the round.
- 29:33The British pound 0.8% weaker at 22.32.
- 29:37And the Euro rand is 19.30.
- 29:41That's a 0.7% fall for the Euro against the mighty currency.
- 29:45The Euro dollar is around about 1.18.
- 29:48For some reason, my screen cuts off the last two figures, so you can tell it's a
- 29:54cheaper model I'm looking at here.
- 29:56But anyway,
- 29:58the dollar has gone from around about 1.1650 a couple of days ago now to 1.18
- 30:05Euro dollar,
- 30:07that is.
- 30:09OK, gold price is doing nicely, thank you very much indeed, just below 4,700.
- 30:10It's up around about 3% on the day.
- 30:13The platinum price, also a really good performer, 4.8% up, 2,070,
- 30:19and that's nearly $100 better.
- 30:21And palladium is up nearly $50 at $15.62, up 3.25%.
- 30:26Now the oil price.
- 30:27You turn your screen off for a second and you don't know where it's gone.
- 30:31Crude oil now for the West Texas brand.
- 30:3394.91 down 7.2 percent Brent crude 101.86 down 7.3
- 30:40percent these were both down around about 12 percent at lunchtime so it is
- 30:46I suppose five percent better off it's mid-range the chartist will be very
- 30:53excited about where it closes um
- 30:55where else what else we got copper doing very well indeed as well up three and a
- 31:00third percent six dollars fourteen and a bit per
- 31:02pound that's someone I look at.
- 31:02Right.
- 31:03Other ones, all-important bond markets.
- 31:05South African 10-year had a great day.
- 31:0723.5 basis points down for the yield.
- 31:10That's up for the bond price.
- 31:11But 8.61 is the yield.
- 31:14The U.S.
- 31:1510-year, it got to about 4.45 yesterday, I think it was.
- 31:20It's now 4.36%. That's a six-basis point fall from the close yesterday.
- 31:25And the 30-year, incidentally, got through 5% yesterday for the first time for quite
- 31:31a while.
- 31:31S&P 500 futures, all-time record high,
- 31:357,370 for the June delivery S&P 500 futures and Bitcoin,
- 31:42in case you want to stay.
- 31:43It's had a lovely month or so, 81,500, which has barely changed on the day.
- 31:49Skulk, shall we look at some of the ups and downs on the JSE?
- 31:51Let's do.
- 31:54Your top five.
- 31:56Okay, so let's use the top five.
- 32:00It's no surprise.
- 32:01Savania Stillwater, as I just mentioned, that was up 11.3%.
- 32:07We've got Impala Platinum.
- 32:08That is up 10% for today.
- 32:11Harmony up 10%.
- 32:12Goldfields up 8.8%.
- 32:14Turbine Rura Purdeep, 8.3%.
- 32:18See the trend there?
- 32:19All three precious metals.
- 32:21Even if you go beyond that, Valterra, 8.1%.
- 32:24Pan African Resources, 7.4%.
- 32:27Northern Platinum 6.3%.
- 32:29And the list goes on all the diggers just over there.
- 32:34On the downside, again, no surprise.
- 32:36We've got Sasol.
- 32:37That is down 7.7% for today.
- 32:41We've got Exaro.
- 32:43That is down 3%.
- 32:45Tungela.
- 32:46That is down 2.8%.
- 32:50What's it?
- 32:52HCI.
- 32:522% and Cup.
- 32:53Also 2%.
- 32:54And Azabush.
- 32:55That's down 2%.
- 32:56but just Just note that that's an ex-ZEV story.
- 32:59Great result yesterday.
- 33:00I don't know if you saw that, Lindsay.
- 33:02No, which ones?
- 33:04And as a bush.
- 33:05No, I didn't see that.
- 33:06And that's with me stopping drinking as well.
- 33:08That's extraordinary.
- 33:10Well, we saw the results in the previous set of results because they actually
- 33:17mentioned that
- 33:19the beer volumes, specifically alcoholic beer volumes, drastically moved down.
- 33:23Just clearly show that people are not drinking.
- 33:25drinking beer anymore, but this time around it just shows things just change
- 33:31around the revenue was up something at six percent
- 33:33The the hips had quite a quite a solid beat on the upside when I say solid beat
- 33:39was something like
- 33:4196 US cents versus something in the 80s which would put a forecast but the one
- 33:47thing that stood out for me Yes
- 33:49was where they mentioned that the the beer volumes that increased again increased
- 33:54And the non-beer volumes actually decrease.
- 33:57I wonder if it's non-alcoholic or low-alcoholic beer that is boosting the
- 34:04volumes or if it's just going back to
- 34:06traditional, let's go out and feel nice for a couple of hours.
- 34:09Skulk, did I tell you, not on air but off air,
- 34:13about a well-known fund manager who went into the booze market,
- 34:17has made a big bet on booze about six months ago?
- 34:20Did I tell you about this fellow and exactly what his rationale was?
- 34:24and exactly what he bought.
- 34:26That was picky, wasn't it?
- 34:28Yeah, OK.
- 34:30It is.
- 34:31It's an interesting one.
- 34:32This particular fellow going into...
- 34:34Not beer.
- 34:35He's going into producers of spirits and high-end spirits as well.
- 34:40You know, if you go out for a bottle of tequila, you don't buy the Jose Cuervo
- 34:45white brand.
- 34:47You go out and spend another 200, 300 grand on a bottle for...
- 34:51I don't know.
- 34:52Bye.
- 34:53a premium Dom Pedro, something like that, or
- 34:57Patron. So that is true.
- 35:00And there's a big correlation.
- 35:03Sorry, I'm interrupting now because the same goes for Diageo.
- 35:07I mean, people tend to think that Diageo is just a spirits company.
- 35:10It's not.
- 35:11I mean, to me, there's not a big difference between a person that buys a
- 35:18Cartier watch versus a
- 35:20person that drinks Johnny Walker Blue.
- 35:22And that's...
- 35:22I think maybe the reasoning behind Big is, well, not to put words in his mouth, but I
- 35:28think we had this conversation.
- 35:30Yeah, we did, and it was also about COVID destocking and all that sort of thing.
- 35:32So anyway, it's interesting to see if he's right.
- 35:34He usually is eventually anyway.
- 35:36Skalk, I think that's it.
- 35:39Where to from here?
- 35:40Just quickly where to from here on goal because we didn't concentrate on it.
- 35:43You hinted at what you'd been doing.
- 35:46I thought we would come down to around about 4,400, 4,450.
- 35:50on the leg down we've just seen, didn't get there.
- 35:53It got within $70, $80 of it, I think.
- 35:57So where to now?
- 35:59Has the frothy money been flushed out and the serious money like yours now coming to
- 36:06the fore again?
- 36:08Yeah, so let's use the fundamentals first.
- 36:09I mean, we've often had this conversation where I say, well,
- 36:13if we do see Project Freedom being a...
- 36:17massive success.
- 36:19We know the playbook from you.
- 36:20We know the playbook that Trump is going to play is now let's try to get the oil
- 36:27price done.
- 36:29Let's get inflation under control and put some pressure on the new governor to get
- 36:33interest rates as low as possible.
- 36:35That's going to put further pressure on the dollar.
- 36:36And in an environment where there's pressure on the dollar, even upward
- 36:42pressure over the shorter term periods on inflation,
- 36:44I would not be selling my gold.
- 36:46Gold fields is one we mentioned earlier, but you like your technicals.
- 36:49I know you do.
- 36:50And so I've been monitoring the likes of gold fields,
- 36:55and it dropped back from the, let's call it,
- 36:58900 to 50-rand levels to your early 700-rand levels.
- 37:05But it stuck to this 200-day moving average like glue.
- 37:11You can see every time it hits this 200,
- 37:14day moving average it just is bounce and bounce and bounce and yesterday you could
- 37:21see for the fourth day in a row
- 37:23it just could not break it formed that very very nice foundation on the 200 day
- 37:28moving average and i
- 37:30said well that's it i'm i'm getting back in so yes
- 37:32i do think that um when i look at the gold it's going to be interesting to see you
- 37:38know this this
- 37:404700 i think if there's going to be further pressure on on the dollar Yeah.
- 37:43which I do think could be the case, I would not be surprised if we go and test
- 37:50that $5,000 again.
- 37:52We've had it.
- 37:54We tested it.
- 37:56We broke it earlier this year.
- 37:58And I think the gold bulls might be sharpening the teeth to go and retest
- 38:01that $5,000.
- 38:03Very good.
- 38:04I'm writing that down as we speak.
- 38:06What's your name, Skunk?
- 38:07Low.
- 38:09Sixth of the fifth, $5,000.
- 38:11Okay.
- 38:12Thank you very much.
- 38:13I don't disagree with you.
- 38:14Sculpto is a portfolio manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town, and that was
- 38:21the five o'clock shadow.
- 38:23The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and
- 38:28various contributors and do not reflect the policy,
- 38:30position or opinion of any other agency, organisation,
- 38:32employer or company associated with StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.
- 38:38Assumptions made on the analyses are not reflective of the facts.
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