Latest / Strictly Business / The 5 o' Clock Shadow with David Shapiro and Viv Govender
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
- 0:05The JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock
- 0:08shadow.
- 0:08And as always on a Thursday, it's the Doubleheader Dream Team edition with Viv
- 0:12Govender from RAND Swiss and David Shapiro from Sasson
- 0:15Securities, both in Johannesburg.
- 0:17I've got a little bit of a list here, gentlemen.
- 0:19I want to start with you, David, because ASML, that's a stock that you have
- 0:23favoured for a long time.
- 0:25They came out with numbers.
- 0:26Did they justify your enthusiasm?
- 0:28Oh, yeah, the numbers did.
- 0:30I think anything that's come out at the moment, TSM, the same kind of thing.
- 0:35The numbers that they're producing are just quite incredible.
- 0:39And if you look what's going to be spent, especially ASML, why I liked ASML's
- 0:44results is that
- 0:46the number of deliveries that are taking place was far ahead of expectation, just
- 0:53showing
- 0:54what machines, Samsung, TSM.
- 0:58SK Hynix and Uvamistat Micron are buying.
- 1:04So we're not slowing down.
- 1:06The market's slowing down, and we can talk about that.
- 1:09The market's creating a wall of worry around this.
- 1:14But I mean, the companies themselves, the numbers, the pure accounting numbers are
- 1:20outstanding.
- 1:21I don't think you can do better.
- 1:23They far exceeded market expectations.
- 1:26But I think...
- 1:27The market's in a very strange mood at the moment.
- 1:29So didn't disappoint at all.
- 1:32No, didn't disappoint.
- 1:33But as you say, the market is starting to look a little bit, I don't know, looking a
- 1:38little bit bitty, actually.
- 1:39I'm looking at the most active on my stocks list at the moment, Micron down
- 1:44another 4%, Sandisk, NVIDIA,
- 1:47all down there.
- 1:48And when I was looking at the 52-week highs yesterday, Viv, I'm going to have to
- 1:52come to you on this one, even though it's not your
- 1:54chosen field, but you watch them.
- 1:56because It's bank reporting season.
- 1:58The 52-week highs were bank, Where are they making their money, Viv?
- 2:03Is it from proprietary trading or are they doing deals?
- 2:06Are they transacting?
- 2:09All of these deals, they talked about like, you know, it's called great M&A
- 2:12activity.
- 2:13They talked about, obviously, it's got other deals happening in the system.
- 2:17Remember when the previous administration was in power in the U.S., there was a
- 2:20person called Lina Khan, and she was running the FTC at the time.
- 2:23And she basically had...
- 2:25almost extremist version of the regulator's powers.
- 2:29So not only was she saying that, you know, they could refuse on a number of different
- 2:33factors, she said they could retroactively refuse.
- 2:36So they could basically agree to a deal and then go back and decide, no, the deal
- 2:39wasn't right and have it break up.
- 2:42She, like, blocked deals that were silly, like, for instance, you know, Amazon and,
- 2:46like, Roomba, a couple, like, you know, game
- 2:49companies, et cetera.
- 2:51It was really a very interventionist, you know...
- 2:55It was regime.
- 2:56And since that she's been let go, I think we've seen a lot more activity happening
- 3:00in the sector, in the US especially.
- 3:02And I think that is obviously something to be looked at.
- 3:04And also remember that, you know, when it comes to these deals, these are global
- 3:08companies in the United States.
- 3:09So if you have one area of the world saying no, that pretty much stops
- 3:13everywhere because, you know, you have to have agreements all over the world to have
- 3:16these deals go through.
- 3:18OK, David, are you a fan of banks?
- 3:20I know you don't like banks in South Africa.
- 3:22Do you like American banks?
- 3:24I do not like them.
- 3:26I just think that banks, I like what's happening now.
- 3:31I like what you're talking about.
- 3:35I love it when markets are moving.
- 3:39I mean, the economies are moving and things are being done.
- 3:42And therefore, there's mergers and acquisitions, there's IPOs, new listings,
- 3:48and underwriting.
- 3:49That's when I like banks, when they become very involved in activity.
- 3:53But I've got to say one thing now.
- 3:55I don't know whether you want me to digress as well.
- 3:58Please do.
- 3:58But we've been looking at the European banks, and they've been doing incredibly
- 4:05well,
- 4:05the wealth managers.
- 4:07And when you delve into them, a lot of it is being focused, such
- 4:14as UBS or HSBC, on the emerging Asian economy.
- 4:18Oh, sorry, the emerging Asian wealth.
- 4:23In fact, the one statement he read is that soon there'll be more billionaires or
- 4:29millionaires
- 4:30in Taiwan than there will be in Switzerland or something around that.
- 4:33So they're focusing on the people who are making money
- 4:41through AI, through the chip companies and so on.
- 4:44All the young people or managers that are making money, they're beginning to focus
- 4:48on them from a wealth management point of view and
- 4:51doing very well.
- 4:52So banks are starting to look interesting, you know, from a point of view is that we
- 4:57forget that wealth is being created.
- 5:00in the world, you know, from the subjects that we talk about all the time.
- 5:04And we'll start to benefit, you know, we'll start to gain from that.
- 5:09So it's an interesting area.
- 5:11South African banks, you know, they're doing fine.
- 5:13You know, they're just plodding along.
- 5:15But I think some of the international banks are beginning to look closer at
- 5:20them.
- 5:21And, you know, particularly as we start to see the multiplier effect coming from the
- 5:27wealth created through
- 5:28this.
- 5:29through the AI industry or the AI supply chain.
- 5:35I still want to see what the percentage of proprietary trading is for the banks'
- 5:39numbers that have been coming out over the last week.
- 5:41So if anyone's looking through any of the results that have come out already, I'd
- 5:47love to know that.
- 5:48But while David's doing that, if he is going to do that.
- 5:52Tell me about SpaceX.
- 5:53David and I spoke about SpaceX on Monday, and David spent his weekend reading about
- 5:58SpaceX, and he came out with
- 6:00this target from one of the analysts of $800 per share.
- 6:05You saw that, Viv, yeah, that was sent to you as well, and you said, what are they
- 6:08smoking?
- 6:09But it's now back, well, it was yesterday anyway, at around about $135 per share,
- 6:14which was the IPO
- 6:16price, Viv.
- 6:16What do you make of it now?
- 6:18Are you looking at it now and saying, OK?
- 6:20It went to $225.
- 6:22It's back to $135.
- 6:23Now is the time to have a look at it?
- 6:27Look, I think it's still quite expensive.
- 6:29This is pretty much the IPO price, and the IPO price was expensive.
- 6:32It wasn't exactly coming in cheap.
- 6:34You've got to take two parts of the business together and see what is worth
- 6:37what.
- 6:38The space business, I think, is a real advantage they have because nobody else in
- 6:41the world is close to them.
- 6:43In fact, it's probably one of the most impressive leads in the industry that
- 6:47you're going to see anywhere in the world.
- 6:49Much more impressive than Nvidia in chips, much more impressive than Apple in cell
- 6:52phones, etc.
- 6:53What SpaceX is able to do with regards to space launches, etc.
- 6:59The other part of the business is not so interesting at the moment.
- 7:02I mean, I think Sam Alpern made a joke about the fact that Elon Musk is going to
- 7:06be downgraded his AI company to selling to
- 7:09be a cloud company as opposed to an AI company.
- 7:11Because he can't seem to get the real brainpower behind it that's going to
- 7:16basically go out there and...
- 7:19to make the new ideas, make the new conceptual leaps, etc., to get his grok up
- 7:25to the same level as
- 7:26the Claudes and Geminis and the Chachibides of the world.
- 7:29But he can get the electricians, the blue-collar workers, to work well in ways
- 7:35that are
- 7:36quite innovative and quite aggressive, in order to build the computing power faster
- 7:41than anybody else in the world.
- 7:42And so he may turn out to be the world supplier of cloud.
- 7:48services as opposed to the world's supply of AI.
- 7:51And in the AI space, that's obviously a very different kind of business, a very
- 7:54different kind of multiple.
- 7:56So it sounds to me that at some stage in the future, in the next five years or so,
- 8:00SpaceX will be split up into different
- 8:03companies.
- 8:04It sounds as though that might happen as the company evolves.
- 8:08David, I said when I sent you a message back to your kind message you sent me, I
- 8:14said, so in other words, you're
- 8:15lurking, you're poised.
- 8:17And I was referring to whether you get into the SpaceX market.
- 8:20Tell us more, please.
- 8:22Well, I'll bring Vivian in this way.
- 8:24It's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek approach that I'm taking.
- 8:29And it's something that I'm bringing up all the time or raising, particularly at
- 8:33the firm.
- 8:34I'm saying, how do we value analysts?
- 8:37What's their worth?
- 8:39Do they justify the amount of money that they are paid at some of the large groups?
- 8:45And why I say that is simply because Raymond James have come out with the $800
- 8:52target
- 8:53price.
- 8:53I think the average is around about $240.
- 8:56I read the UBS report, which is around $210.
- 9:01So I'm saying, Vivian, this is where I'm coming from.
- 9:03I'm saying they go out and sell it.
- 9:05They don't employ analysts just to write reports and then to, you know, they send
- 9:10it to salesmen.
- 9:11and those salesmen phone up all their clients and say, you know, Our analyst has
- 9:15just looked at SpaceX.
- 9:18These are the issues that he likes.
- 9:20The fact that it's becoming a cloud company, using compute, sending
- 9:24satellites, blah, Lindsay Williams
- 9:27is using it, blah, and so on.
- 9:31And this is what he thinks.
- 9:34He's got a target price of $240,000.
- 9:36So they go out and sell it.
- 9:37I'm saying, if they're doing that, and the shares are now $125,000 or $1.
- 9:42I think they just picked up a little today, 135.
- 9:45Okay, I'm going to have a punt because someone's going to fall for it and start
- 9:48buying.
- 9:49You know, my downside is limited by the numbers put on by these analysts.
- 9:54How do we rate these analysts?
- 9:56So that's my full research, other than reading it.
- 10:01Okay, Viv, you've got to come in here.
- 10:03Is that a good way to look at it?
- 10:04Do you say to yourself, like I would, I'd say there was such a scramble to get into
- 10:09the IPO, but now it's back where it was.
- 10:11You can just buy it on the open market, Viv.
- 10:13So why wouldn't there be a sort of a it's almost like you've got a put option there
- 10:17at 135, 130, something like that.
- 10:21I think Warren Buffett said it best.
- 10:22In the short term, the Buffett's a voting machine.
- 10:24The long term, it's a weighing machine.
- 10:25The short term, it's sentiment.
- 10:27The long term, it's actual fundamentals.
- 10:29Look, it's possible that SpaceX has fundamentals that justify $800 a share.
- 10:33That's a $10 trillion company just about, you know what I mean?
- 10:36That's twice the size of NVIDIA.
- 10:37What market justifies that, you know what I mean?
- 10:40What revenue does the company need to bring in to justify that?
- 10:43And where is it going to come from?
- 10:45$10 trillion is basically, I mean, I think global GDP is around about $125, $130
- 10:51trillion.
- 10:51This is close on 10% of global GDP for one company.
- 10:55What is the marketplace that justifies that?
- 10:56But look.
- 10:57If you can get things, for instance, like either the
- 11:02space data centers working, space mining working, but I don't think space mining is
- 11:07actually a feasible industry.
- 11:09Because, I mean, the danger of space mining is effectively you're giving a
- 11:13private company an arsenal bigger than any nuclear arsenal in the world.
- 11:16Because you drop something from space, the power it has to come to Earth becomes
- 11:20gigantic.
- 11:20So I don't think space mining is actually a real thing in the future.
- 11:23So it has to be something like the space data centers or...
- 11:25traveling to Mars, that kind of stuff.
- 11:27Maybe that works out, but that does not work out next year or the year after that.
- 11:30And so I think that you're having a very long-term, very optimistic view.
- 11:35And the valuation, I mean, even right now, it's still an extremely valuable company,
- 11:39you know?
- 11:40I just can't see where the marketplace is in the short to medium term to justify it
- 11:44right now.
- 11:45And so that's why I stay away.
- 11:46You could be quite right.
- 11:47I'm just taking a punt.
- 11:50I'm just being, that's why I say I'm being a little cynical tongue-in-cheek.
- 11:54I'm saying let's see the power of the analysts.
- 11:58Why do we employ them?
- 12:01So I've been going at them all the time because when I look at some of the
- 12:06valuations that are coming out in the
- 12:07market, even if they don't get anywhere close to what their projected prices are,
- 12:14still going to
- 12:15make a lot of money.
- 12:16But how powerful and how strong are these people and how relevant are they?
- 12:21How correct are they?
- 12:22Lindsay, I've got your numbers, mate.
- 12:24I've got your numbers.
- 12:25Okay, thank you very much.
- 12:27My question was, just in case anyone nodded off, I was asking what percentage
- 12:33of the bank's
- 12:34numbers, the revenue, for example, is proprietary trading?
- 12:39I would say, given that it's been a bull market, I would say it's a fairly decent
- 12:43chunk, David.
- 12:44What do the numbers say?
- 12:46Well, I've got the equity trading, okay?
- 12:49I haven't got the bond trading.
- 12:51But if you look to JP Morgan, income was $21.2 billion.
- 12:57Admittedly, they sold their Visa stake and booked $4.6 billion.
- 13:01So that was exceptional.
- 13:03But of the $21.2 billion, $6 billion was equity markets.
- 13:08I haven't got their bond trading.
- 13:09For their own book.
- 13:12That was up 86%.
- 13:13And I think this is all around the equity market as well as the… as the IPOs and so
- 13:20on.
- 13:21They're all associated.
- 13:22Goldman Sachs up nearly 80% at $6.63 billion.
- 13:28Bank of America up 33%, $7.1 billion.
- 13:32They're not as involved as JP Morgan or Goldman.
- 13:35They're not as big.
- 13:37Citigroup, also a much smaller bank, $2.3 billion, but up 45%.
- 13:42I think those are the the relevant numbers just.
- 13:48you know how big they are how much how much they were up from the quarter last
- 13:52year i'm going to try to delve into the bond you
- 13:55know bond trading you know but it's a significant number that's the point and
- 13:58that i always find a significant number i find it very dangerous
- 14:01especially if the market turns and then the next quarter yeah that chunk will be
- 14:05significantly smaller that's my opinion oh yeah
- 14:08no they're not going to repeat these numbers you know they won't unless we get
- 14:13a lot more uh deals taking
- 14:15place you Look, we've got Anthropic coming and you've got OpenAI that could come that
- 14:22might
- 14:23create the same kind of stir on the markets.
- 14:27But they do make money.
- 14:29And I mean, it's quite, you know, when you think about what these bankers are going
- 14:35to take place, what
- 14:36these chaps sitting on the desk, the amount of money that they're going to make
- 14:39for themselves.
- 14:40It's really, it's quite.
- 14:45It's absolutely ridiculous.
- 14:47It is.
- 14:48That's why they can buy these 20-dollion.
- 14:5120 million dollar apartments in New York or 25 million and then go and have another
- 14:57house in the
- 14:57Hamptons and so on.
- 15:00Yeah, sometimes there's valid reason for, you know, for the protests that take place
- 15:06and for the
- 15:07demands that they give a little back.
- 15:09Exactly.
- 15:10Suddenly, Davis, jealousy was the first thing that came out of your last
- 15:16statement.
- 15:17But also suddenly you become a bit of a Mamdani.
- 15:20but let's not go into that.
- 15:21Text them,
- 15:25Drive them out of New York, I say.
- 15:28Viv, what was I going to say to you?
- 15:30There was something important I needed to say to you, but I've forgotten completely
- 15:33what it was because of David becoming a socialist.
- 15:36But David, I have to quickly stay with you, and Viv can come in on this one as
- 15:39well, please.
- 15:40The Richemont numbers were fantastic, weren't they?
- 15:42Yeah, Yeah, superb.
- 15:43And it's, I like...
- 15:49Viv's opinion on this, and Viv, it's nice to discuss it, because I read, you know,
- 15:55this is
- 15:56where I have this, not conundrum, but this difficulty, irony.
- 16:01First of all, we hear that Phoenicia closing down.
- 16:05That's the biggest diamond mine in South Africa.
- 16:08It's not a big mine in terms of De Beers, but what this spells out is that the fake,
- 16:13not fake, these industrial
- 16:14diamonds now.
- 16:16or the prices are coming down and therefore affecting the diamond industry.
- 16:21And yet Richemont's numbers came from selling jewelry.
- 16:25Yes.
- 16:27Cartier and Fonclair Fonopels.
- 16:30And this was never a big part.
- 16:32When we used to talk about Richemont, we spoke about their watches, you know, the
- 16:37high-end watches.
- 16:39That was where they made most of their money.
- 16:41Sales were down there.
- 16:43So this is all around jewelry, which is becoming a store of value and is actually
- 16:49sales are exceeding or interest is exceeding what we're seeing in other
- 16:54luxury companies like LVMH
- 16:56and Kering and other places like you know bags, Hermes, the bags and the fashion.
- 17:03So it's kind of taking over the luxury market from Cleopatra and Cartier and
- 17:09these are high level
- 17:10you know very wealthy people buying very wealthy pieces of jewelry, which is which
- 17:15is odd.
- 17:16And it was widespread.
- 17:18The sales were broadly spread.
- 17:20It wasn't confined to one particular area.
- 17:23And it's an incredibly interesting change in trend because Richemont was always what
- 17:30I call
- 17:31the bridesmaid or the ugly sister.
- 17:33And suddenly it's a Cinderella.
- 17:36It's blossoming.
- 17:37I was speaking to a South African fund manager yesterday, and he said he would
- 17:41consider now Richemont to be the world's premier luxury goods
- 17:44company.
- 17:45Now he was speaking with his South African hat on.
- 17:47But there is something to it.
- 17:51Do these sort of numbers make you interested, Viv?
- 17:55Look, I mean, the interesting thing about luxury is that, you know, it's very
- 17:57difficult to build a new luxury brand.
- 17:59I mean, like you talked about the fact that people are spending more money on the
- 18:02jewelry business, which kind of makes sense in a way, if you think about it.
- 18:05People in the world are getting very, very wealthy.
- 18:08I mean, how much gold are you going to be able to wear on the neck to show that
- 18:11you're rich?
- 18:12It becomes almost a sense of style.
- 18:14If you were really poor, having a silk dress was the thing.
- 18:18But if you were quite wealthy, you have to have a silk dress that's also designed by
- 18:22a great designer, if you know what I mean.
- 18:24Just having a thick gold chain doesn't give you the same cachet as having a thick
- 18:28gold chain that's also designed very beautifully
- 18:31with artistic elements in it, etc.
- 18:34I think that could be one of the reasons we've seen some of these companies do
- 18:36really well, is because people are getting wealthier and they're also going towards
- 18:40not just the underlying
- 18:41asset, but the diamond or the gold, but also towards the artistic and the
- 18:48aesthetic qualities behind things, which might be one way.
- 18:51But I do think that if you are looking at the world in which people are making a
- 18:55fortune in AI, where you have these fortunes being made in different things,
- 18:58you are going to find people spending more money on, like I said, jewelry.
- 19:04We saw that with Bitcoin, when the crypto stuff was really aging out.
- 19:07We saw a lot of luxury brands do really well because these Bitcoin millionaires,
- 19:12also in this case billionaires, wanted
- 19:14to spend their money.
- 19:15And one thing they could spend their money on was luxury goods.
- 19:18And I think that's something similar we're going to be seeing as these AI companies
- 19:21start to spread the wealth around.
- 19:23I saw somebody yesterday and he had a very nice watch on.
- 19:26I noticed it was a Rolex.
- 19:28It had a different strap on it.
- 19:30And I said, that's interesting.
- 19:31Where did you get that?
- 19:32Oh, my father bought it for me 20 years ago.
- 19:35And because I've watched the Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday night on BBC One, I
- 19:39know that Rolex is incredibly highly prized.
- 19:42I said, how much is it worth?
- 19:44He said, well, if it had the original strap on, I didn't like it.
- 19:48But if it had the original strap, which I think I've got, it's probably $45,000 to
- 19:52$50,000.
- 19:53euros i said that's quite a lot to be holding to be having on your wrist there
- 19:57and he said yeah if i go to london i can't wear
- 20:00it because there's there's such a crime wave of not only phones being stolen but
- 20:06jewelry
- 20:07being stolen people's had sit outside restaurants david and see somebody with
- 20:12his with his wife or something or
- 20:14whatever it is and they see that they're bedecked in jewelry out they come and they
- 20:18and they they nick it they hold them up so you I
- 20:21don't know.
- 20:22Are people buying luxury for a store of value, as you said in your introduction?
- 20:29Yes and no.
- 20:30Rolex is still, I mean, the fact that you can't wear it in London, you can't wear it
- 20:34in South Africa.
- 20:35But you can certainly wear it maybe in Europe and in the US and probably in the
- 20:42Asian
- 20:42countries.
- 20:44But it is, that's the point that I was getting to with Richemont, that it It is
- 20:50becoming
- 20:51a store of value.
- 20:52Yes.
- 20:52You know, how and why?
- 20:55And these are pieces where they're branded pieces, so you know it's Cartier.
- 21:00You know, in other words, there is a bit of snob value around the design or the
- 21:06piece that you buy.
- 21:08I don't think it was ever like that.
- 21:10You know, as long as I've been following Richemont, you know, it started off, they
- 21:16even had the clothing.
- 21:17Remember, they had a number of clothes like this.
- 21:19Dunhill and I'm trying to remember where they try to go into fashion, try to go
- 21:25into leather goods
- 21:26without great success.
- 21:28But it was always regarded as a specialist watch business.
- 21:32Now, yes, they had from Cleopatra and they had Cartier on the side.
- 21:36But, you know, I would always think, oh, you went into Cartier to buy a watch.
- 21:39But no, not at all.
- 21:41So it's quite, you know, it's quite remarkable how this company has turned
- 21:47around.
- 21:48or found its niche and how fashions have changed or tastes have changed.
- 21:55But I mean, the results were good.
- 21:57I'll tell you a stuff that will sort of blow your mind.
- 21:59Do you know a kg of gold is worth more than a kg of $100 bills?
- 22:06A kg of gold is worth more than a kilogram of $100 bills.
- 22:10You mean the weight of a kilogram of gold is worth more than a kilogram of dollar
- 22:17bills?
- 22:18Yeah.
- 22:18You're talking about a store of value.
- 22:21Because the gold price is as high as a kg of gold.
- 22:25You carry around basically a kilogram of $100 bills.
- 22:30Gold is worth more.
- 22:31And probably in this current world, probably a better store of value because
- 22:34of the fact that it can't be as easily traced and
- 22:38whatnot.
- 22:39So it could be possible.
- 22:39Many people live in countries that obviously have issues and so on.
- 22:42So that could be someone putting their value towards gold or towards these kind
- 22:45of metals and so on because of the fact that...
- 22:48It is something more easy to transportable.
- 22:50But yeah, it's an interesting fact.
- 22:52I mean, you would have thought, you know, $100 bulls, you know, not worth the weight
- 22:56of gold.
- 22:58Gold in rand per kg, by the way, is, gosh, 2 million.
- 23:03What is that number I've got down there?
- 23:06Don't ask me to check.
- 23:07No, no, I'm not going to ask you to check that, David.
- 23:10It looks like 21,400, no, this can't be right, 2,114.
- 23:171,274 rand.
- 23:20Is that correct?
- 23:212 million for a kilo of gold?
- 23:23It can't be.
- 23:23In rand.
- 23:24Is that right?
- 23:24It's about $150,000.
- 23:27Why is it kilo rand?
- 23:32In rand.
- 23:33Anyway, I don't know.
- 23:34I was just looking at my screen when Viv says kilos, but in rand terms.
- 23:37Anyway, I don't want to get into that because I want to give you some numbers
- 23:40now.
- 23:41The dollar rand is pretty steady, actually.
- 23:43It's at $16.41.
- 23:45British pound against the rand is 22.14, and the euro rand is 18.78, with the euro
- 23:49dollar at 1.1440.
- 23:51That gold price keeps on dipping below 4,000, but there's lurking buyers there.
- 23:56It keeps on getting nibbled away at.
- 23:59It's almost the equilibrium point.
- 24:02The market is sort of vacillating around that number.
- 24:05It's currently 4,006, which is 1.25% down.
- 24:09That's in U.S.
- 24:10dollar terms.
- 24:11Platinum is up a percent to 16.58.
- 24:14And palladium is down a percent to $12.80 per ounce.
- 24:18Now, the oil price, by the way, since we last spoke, which was two weeks ago,
- 24:23another war has broken out, the same one that we had before, but it's
- 24:25broken out again.
- 24:26So the oil price is $84.82.
- 24:29It's down a third of a percent today.
- 24:31That's for Brent crude, and West Texas crude is $79.33.
- 24:34Copper is $6.33, which is up 0.6%.
- 24:41What else have we got?
- 24:42S&P.
- 24:42Nothing, down 0.2%.
- 24:43The futures at 7,600.
- 24:45September futures, that is the US 10-year bond yield, 4.57%.
- 24:49The South African 10-year is 8.59%.
- 24:52And Bitcoin, which has had a terrific couple of weeks, is 64,666, which is down
- 24:58on the day
- 24:59by 1.1%.
- 25:02I'm going to get the winners and losers on the JSC in a moment.
- 25:07But Viv, what else have you got?
- 25:08Any nuggets of information that I and maybe even David has probably missed?
- 25:15Yeah, look at the oil price.
- 25:16The one thing I'm noticing is the oil price extended $85 a barrel.
- 25:20But the RAND is still holding at about $16.40.
- 25:23It really hasn't changed.
- 25:24Yes.
- 25:24When you start the walk, I mean, you were looking at the RAND basically moving quite
- 25:29in lockstep with the oil price.
- 25:31It was.
- 25:31Obviously, going higher, oil prices meant a weaker currency.
- 25:35And the gold price as well.
- 25:36I mean, you would have thought at least being affected by the gold price now
- 25:38breaking through 4,000 a couple of times.
- 25:42I would have thought the round would have been weaker.
- 25:43But the fact that it's holding quite strong is an interesting factor, I think.
- 25:47Yeah, it is very interesting.
- 25:49There seems to be you can't there's no correlation between the markets anymore.
- 25:55That's a difficulty.
- 25:58You've got the bond market.
- 25:59which is not reflecting the equity market.
- 26:03And then you've got the other equity market, which is reflecting the higher
- 26:06interest rates or worries about oil price and so on.
- 26:08There's almost like three different markets taking place as well.
- 26:12But it's so difficult to correlate the oil price with the currency markets,
- 26:21which I would relate to the bond markets.
- 26:23So there's different personalities and very difficult to try and feather them
- 26:28out.
- 26:29Because as you say, I would have thought that the RAND would have been under a bit
- 26:32of pressure.
- 26:32Gold, on the other hand, is coming under pressure.
- 26:37So those traditional correlations just aren't working.
- 26:42I don't like the gold price.
- 26:43I think it's battling at these levels and sooner or later it's going to make that
- 26:48plunge through 4000
- 26:50and once it happens psychologically, it starts to go down again.
- 26:54And I'm arguing this point as well, Lindsay.
- 26:58And a lot of it is based just on watching daily movements.
- 27:02You start to create patterns in your head and say this is not reflecting what
- 27:09analysts are saying.
- 27:10It's bullish and it's starting to buy.
- 27:13Should it start buying gold at these?
- 27:14I don't see it.
- 27:15I don't see it in the gold shares as well.
- 27:17Well, if you look at the World Gold Council report, the amount.
- 27:21that the the real buyers in other words the central banks are buying is is quite
- 27:26significant i mean obviously the etfs and the
- 27:28retail investors and whatever else unit trusts and stuff uh whatever they buy uh
- 27:35is
- 27:35it can be transitory you know it goes up and down but when when a central bank buys
- 27:40a hundred tons of gold or something over a
- 27:42period it stays there for many many years i get the impression that below that
- 27:46around about this 4 000 level uh people are nibbling away
- 27:49again But that's just me.
- 27:50Let me have a look at the JSC now.
- 27:51On the upside, Karoo up 7.6%.
- 27:54Mondi, 3.8% to the good.
- 27:56Grinrode up nearly 3%.
- 27:57Sassl, near 3%.
- 27:59Gaynor and Telcom up 2.7%.
- 28:01On the downside, we've got poor old Pick and Pay down another 2.3%.
- 28:06It's 18 round 99 on my screen.
- 28:09How much cheaper can this get?
- 28:10Because I spoke to a deep, deep value manager on Friday, and he has started
- 28:17buying Pick and Pay.
- 28:20I don't know, both of you, you've got your opinion on this, David.
- 28:23It is based on the basis that Boxer is worth 30 Rand a share.
- 28:29In other words, I'm making up numbers, but Boxer is worth 30 Rand a share to the
- 28:34pick-and-pay share price, and it's
- 28:36trading now at 14 or 15.
- 28:37Therefore, the pick-and-pay brand is worth minus 15.
- 28:42I think that's the approach.
- 28:47Okay.
- 28:50Well, I don't know.
- 28:51I just think, you know, when I look at retailers, Lindsay, and you're with me on
- 28:55this one, when I look at the trend in
- 28:58retailers, they're heading south very fast.
- 29:02The chart, I mean, the direction of the chart is awful.
- 29:05Does that, Viv, when was the last time you were in a pick and pay store?
- 29:09That's the first question I'm going to ask.
- 29:12I think last week.
- 29:14Okay.
- 29:14But look, it's not all retailers.
- 29:15I mean, ShopRite is not doing that badly.
- 29:18And I think that's something that we looked at as well, is the fact that I
- 29:21think we are seeing a change in the
- 29:25dynamics of the retail sector with the delivery stuff.
- 29:27I mean, you've seen them in Joburg or in South Africa, you see these little
- 29:31delivery bikes everywhere.
- 29:32That's a huge business at the moment.
- 29:34It's only getting bigger.
- 29:35And I do think that scale matters here.
- 29:37And when you have one company worth $14 billion and one company worth $170
- 29:40billion, I know who I'm betting on is going to be the one that has the
- 29:43capital to win that battle.
- 29:45And with regards to the Boxer pricing, I mean, pick and pay has shown that they may
- 29:50be willing to get us on the Boxer shares, but they're not going to give the money
- 29:52back to
- 29:53the shareholders directly.
- 29:55And that I think maybe why people are a bit worried about, you know, just given
- 29:58the true value of coming through for Boxer.
- 30:00But the retail space, I think, is incredibly exciting.
- 30:02But unfortunately, I think it's going to be a win-or-take-all kind of situation,
- 30:05not a rising tide raises all boats.
- 30:09Well, I wish one of the South African retail specialists would get snapped up by
- 30:12a Dutch retail chain because you have to
- 30:16order.
- 30:17If I order something now, if I order it before 9 o'clock this evening, it comes
- 30:23before
- 30:249 o'clock tomorrow evening, and it's usually bang on 9 o'clock in the evening.
- 30:27It's a 24-hour service is the quickest they can do here.
- 30:30So what?
- 30:31back way, way behind South Africa.
- 30:33I think South African retailers actually run rather well.
- 30:37David, what did the indices do today on the JSC, please?
- 30:41We closed flat.
- 30:42Yeah, the all share, 49 points up, which translates into 0.04 of a percent.
- 30:50The top 40 was actually down slightly.
- 30:52So the mine is under pressure.
- 30:54Gold and platinum mine is under pressure.
- 30:56The rest of the market's steady, lifted.
- 31:01I
- 31:05can't see any major features on the market there.
- 31:07I'm just looking at Peru.
- 31:09I don't know if you picked that up.
- 31:11I never understand this company.
- 31:13They came out with a very good quarterly report, which I think pushed them over 100
- 31:17Rand again.
- 31:18But I think outside of that, Mondi, Sessel, Telcom.
- 31:22So I don't know what kept those markets alive, but I think the pressure was on
- 31:26the...
- 31:28on the metal prices, you know, precious mining and metals.
- 31:32And it's a quiet time of year as well with the Northern Hemisphere somewhere in full
- 31:35swing, and there was only 21.5 billion on the JSE yesterday, which
- 31:39is below the recent average anyway.
- 31:41I see today, yeah.
- 31:43Thank you very much for your time.
- 31:45In fact, under 20 today, yeah, under 20.
- 31:49Yeah, that's the influence of overseas traders.
- 31:51Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.
- 31:53David Shapiro is from Sassam Securities.
- 31:55Viv Govender is from Ranswift.
- 31:57both from Johannesburg, and that was the 5 o'clock shadow.
- 32:00The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and
- 32:04various contributors and do not reflect the policy,
- 32:07position or opinion of any other agency, organisation, employer or company
- 32:13associated with
- 32:14StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.
- 32:16Assumptions made on the analyses are not reflective of the position of any other
- 32:21entity other than the speaker or the author.
- 32:23And since we are critically thinking human beings, These views are always subject to
- 32:28change, revision and
- 32:30rethinking at any time.
- 32:32Please do not hold us to them in perpetuity.