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

• 0:00
  You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
• 0:05
  The JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock
• 0:08
  shadow.
• 0:09
  And as always, on a Thursday, I speak to David Shapiro from Sasson Securities and
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  also Viv Govender from Rand
• 0:15
  Swiss.
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  It's the double-headed dream team edition.
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  I build this week, gentlemen, as the week that would paper over the cracks or even
• 0:24
  plaster over the cracks that have appeared in the market.
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  And, or they would open up even more of these cracks and become chasms.
• 0:33
  It was all because of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, other
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  central banks as well.
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  And of course, the raft of tech earnings that we have been having and will be
• 0:42
  having in the next few trading
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  days as well.
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  David Shapiro, I'm looking at moves of 15, 12,
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  16.
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  20% up on certain stocks.
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  I'll read them out later.
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  But it's madness, isn't it?
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  It is.
• 1:00
  You know, Lindsay, I get angry.
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  I get angry because you get the media.
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  When you read reports and you listen to companies and you see, you know, you
• 1:14
  listen to what they're saying
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  about expansion, how much they're spending, why they're spending it, and so
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  on.
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  And then you get the cynical approach that comes through.
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  from the media where they put guests on who are negative, who are going to share
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  their opinions.
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  They like to cause disruptions.
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  And you start to question yourself, is this real or not?
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  I'm looking at what analysts are saying, I'm looking at what the company is saying,
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  and then I see what the media say and what
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  commentators or investors, and that's an inverted commas.
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  And you sit here saying, oh my God, what do we do?
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  I get you get mails from your family saying, should we stay in?
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  Should we get out?
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  And I say, stay in, you know, just relax.
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  And then you wake up today or you come in today and everything's turned around.
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  But at a major level, I've just been reading Qantas services results.
• 2:08
  Admittedly, the share price has been down there.
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  You know, they're a provider of electrical infrastructure, probably the largest in.
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  the US.
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  It's a fairly big business.
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  And their results would just blow out, talking about how much they're spending
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  and where their earnings are.
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  And the share is up now in the region of 14%, 15%.
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  The same with SK Hynix, which has been absolutely shattered.
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  I get a report from UBS, which has now got a target price of over 200.
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  The share was down at like 120.
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  That's up 15%.
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  Microsoft's results blow out up 15%.
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  Lindsay, we're talking 15%.
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  That's what the S&P does in a year, in one day.
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  So I'm just sitting here saying, okay, I'm enjoying this, but I don't know how to
• 3:04
  make
• 3:05
  sense of it and how to explain the volatility.
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  to outsiders i suppose the volatility can be explained by the darling ai that you
• 3:13
  two both embrace and have embraced so
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  successfully and correctly so viv isn't that the case i mean here we go micron up
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  13 and a half percent to david's point to
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  microsoft nearly 14 percent higher after results sandisk which has been a horror
• 3:27
  show recently up 21
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  percent meta on the other hand down nearly nine and video up two and a bit amd you
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  13% higher.
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  So these numbers are a little bit disconcerting.
• 3:38
  Intel up 13%.
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  Viv, are you with David on this one?
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  The volatility is a little bit anger-making.
• 3:46
  Oh, yes.
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  I mean, Gloom Energy up 26%.
• 3:49
  Look, I mean, I agree in part with David.
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  There is some irrationality, but also you must understand some real news events
• 3:56
  causing this to happen.
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  So, for instance, the reason that the memory companies came down was there's a
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  company called CXMT from China.
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  I don't know if you guys heard of that.
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  I talked about it so far this week.
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  But anyway, this briefly, I think it's currently either the largest or one of the
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  largest companies in China listed on
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  the 27th of July.
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  And today is the 30th of July.
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  And it's up, I think, 450 percent, you know, massively up in like three days.
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  I think about 450 percent of the first day, in fact.
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  This year basically is for a memory maker company in China.
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  And until recently, there's like been three companies that can make the kind of
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  chips that this company makes or started to make right now.
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  That's been SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung.
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  Names I'm sure you guys all know with regards to how well they've done.
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  And this company comes out.
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  They show that they can do some of the stuff that these companies have done.
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  Obviously, at a much, much higher price, like 30 percent more expensive.
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  But it does give you some questioning about whether or not there is
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  possibilities that China could catch up.
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  And of course, when you have.
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  a new competitor market that has a 99% shareholding for other companies, you want
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  to get a piece of it.
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  And how do you get a piece of it?
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  You've got to sell some of what you have and buy some of what they have, you know
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  what I mean?
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  And that's, I think, part of the reason we've seen some of the pullbacks.
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  But also, you know, as David mentioned, we see a lot of irrationality in the market.
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  Maybe it's profit-taking.
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  Maybe it's people not believing the numbers.
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  But I mean, just today, Meta is down 10% almost because of the announcement of its
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  spending.
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  But who are they spending the money on?
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  It's the Micros, NVIDIA, you know what I mean, of the world.
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  The $279 billion spending that you're talking about is going to go to Micros and
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  NVIDIA and the other...
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  infrastructure plays in the AI space.
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  So you've got to take both sides of the coin, I think.
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  David, I got a little bit annoyed as well because it's a very fickle
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  world, as you said in your little rant at the beginning there, because over the last
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  few months, everyone said,
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  fantastic, look at all this money they're spending on R&D, this capital expenditure,
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  isn't it fantastic?
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  Let's buy it.
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  And the market goes soaring.
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  suddenly People get into their minds, oh, wait a second, we've got to punish these
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  people because they're spending too much.
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  And we don't know if the spending is going to be justified in the numbers over the
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  next few months.
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  So they've gone from yes, please, thank you very much, to no, thank you, I'm going
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  to sell you.
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  That has been a little bit of a theme, I think, in the last week or so.
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  But it's, what's the word, it's reinforced by the media.
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  And where I criticize the media.
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  is that they will choose or they will select who the guests are going to be, who
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  obviously
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  support the story they want to push.
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  You never get a balanced view.
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  You'll never get two people saying, you know, I disagree with that.
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  I think this is right.
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  Or someone making a statement about overspending and then balancing the views.
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  And what happens is you start to get a distortion one way or the next.
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  And then you start to think, well, Who are these people?
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  I'm reading the research.
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  I have it in front of me.
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  When I say cynically, and it was cynically when SpaceX came out, I exposed
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  where the analysts had their views, which were sometimes crazy views.
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  But nevertheless, I said, well, and what happened after that is that the price came
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  tumbling down.
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  And if you look at SpaceX, It's still, I don't know where.
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  120 having reached a price of 250.
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  So those are the kind of movements you get.
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  SK Hynix, we've seen the similar kind of movement as well, where they came under
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  huge fanfare
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  onto the NASDAQ, oversubscribed.
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  Everybody wanted their piece of it.
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  Analysts were pushing it.
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  The next day, it's gone down significantly, almost half or certainly
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  30, 40%.
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  down to a level, you say, well, who's selling it?
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  And what's happened to all those people who were pushing it?
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  So, you know, what I'm saying is that there's so many, there's so much
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  volatility and
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  almost, if you want to call it fake or false news out there, that it's very
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  difficult for anybody looking, you know, just trying
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  to monitor this to make up their mind.
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  But David, if you listen to every podcast or every television interview that you've
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  had, You've...
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  promote long-term investing.
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  So you're not a day trader, so you shouldn't worry about this sort of thing.
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  In fact, you should use the dips that are part of the
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  media.
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  Media has been part of that.
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  I don't say the media affects the market.
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  It may affect it a tiny bit, but I don't really think so.
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  So you should be saying, good, bring these negative people on because I've got the
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  report in front of me and I can buy into the dip.
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  Look to the long term.
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  That's what I'm doing.
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  That's exactly where I am.
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  But what I'm trying to get at is that you've got a public out there whose money
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  you manage, you
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  know, who starts to say, I just read this, I just heard this.
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  And we say, just focus on the fundamentals.
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  Look at the numbers.
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  Lindsay, and I say it again, even if you look at meta, if you look at the sheer
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  numbers, take away the noise or all the forecasts and projections and that.
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  In terms of the numbers that they produce, it's still a very lucrative, solid
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  business.
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  Yes, it'll go through a heck of a lot of things.
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  He is trying to build it.
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  That's how business is built.
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  It's not symmetrical.
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  But I'm saying I enjoy looking line by line by line.
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  How are they doing?
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  Yes, a problem here, but they can sort it out because they're big enough to do it.
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  But you've got to have, when I say faith, you've got to have the courage of your
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  convictions and and stick by
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  what you believe in you know So your clients have been watching some things and
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  they've come back
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  to you and it's made you annoyed and so you're blaming the media.
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  Just like Donald Trump does, David.
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  I'm not comparing you to Donald Trump.
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  No, no.
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  But it's the same principle.
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  It's CNN versus Fox.
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  Some people watch one, some people watch the other and they form their opinions.
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  But anyway, we know that you'll persuade them to stay in.
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  I want to talk about something else now which made me a little bit, not concerned,
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  but it surprised me a bit.
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  And Viv, it was last night's decision from the US Federal Reserve to leave rates
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  unchanged.
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  25 percent, i.e.
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  three of the FOMC, decided that they wanted rates to go up.
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  But obviously they were in the minority.
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  So rates stayed the same.
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  But Walsh said all sorts of things.
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  He said inflation's been too high for many, many years and we can't fix it in
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  nine weeks,
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  I think he said.
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  Well, if you can't fix it in nine weeks and it's been there for five years, then
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  just raise rates.
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  and get it down, get started with it.
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  Because he said the economy is, he said something about it being very
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  resilient, I think.
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  And he went through the numbers.
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  He said the labor force is supporting jobs growth.
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  I don't know what that means.
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  He said the unemployment rate is under control and it's steady.
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  He said growth was this and everything else was that.
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  Productivity was that.
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  And I thought after, if you'd heard the speech first, he would have, he would
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  have.
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  he would have raised rates.
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  But he didn't, Viv.
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  And that sort of sows the seeds of doubt about his stewardship.
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  Yes, most certainly.
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  I mean, look, a couple of things.
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  First of all, some of the officers are saying he looks a bit too young for the
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  role, even though he's in his mid-50s.
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  We live in such a generatocracy that a guy in his 50s is considered to be a little
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  too young for these kind of positions.
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  But that aside, look, I do think that with regards to his kind of public
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  persona at the moment.
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  He does say a few things that are interesting and kind of make sense with
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  regards to, for instance, you know, guidance and so on.
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  But, you know, the real crux of the matter is that Donald Trump appointed him for a
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  reason.
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  Donald Trump wanted somebody that has lower interest rates.
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  That's why Powell was kicked out, effectively, because Powell wasn't willing
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  to go down the path of having interest rates lower than, like, you know,
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  consensus, effectively, in order to boost the economy.
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  Trump doesn't really care about what inflation does, you know, in two or three
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  years' time.
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  He's going to be out of office then.
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  He wants to see inflation down, which is going to interest us down, even though it
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  may cause inflation in the longer term, because it's going to boost economic
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  growth, because it's going to boost the stock
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  market.
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  It's going to make him look good in the short term.
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  And unfortunately, Walsh has not done much after his first initial kind of speeches
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  to reinforce the idea
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  that he's got the credibility to go after inflation as strongly as he probably needs
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  to.
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  Yesterday, he was supported by the fact the PCE number came in lower than expected
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  and U.S.
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  economic growth is lower than expected, which does a bit.
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  foot into the idea that maybe we don't need to raise interest rates at the
• 12:47
  moment.
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  But like you said, we've had five years effectively where inflation has been above
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  target.
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  In that environment, you probably want to be having interest rates on the upper
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  track.
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  Exactly.
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  David, final word before we go to the market.
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  So Microsoft.
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  What is your view on Microsoft?
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  Are you a Microsoft holder on behalf of your clients?
• 13:04
  I am.
• 13:05
  And what did you think of that?
• 13:06
  Because it looked very good.
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  Obviously, the market loves it.
• 13:10
  You know what?
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  I've been a user of Microsoft and I've been a user of Copilot.
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  and the paid version through Microsoft 365.
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  And I find it superb.
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  And I can understand why it is attracting so much attention.
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  Not because of the high level that it's at, but probably because of the low level
• 13:30
  that it's at.
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  And it's very easy to use and very useful.
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  It's a very useful tool.
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  I'm a great supporter of them.
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  We're using it all the time.
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  whether we're using Teams, whether we're using all their products.
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  And I think it was just a matter of time before they moved.
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  And what surprised everybody was the Azure, was the increase in the use of
• 13:57
  cloud.
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  And if you listen to Zuckerberg, he spoke about compute power.
• 14:05
  He spoke about that there's just not enough.
• 14:08
  Now We might despise him or dislike him because he's that kind of character that
• 14:14
  does it to you.
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  But you can't ignore him.
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  And I think nor can you ignore the voices of Jensen Wang and people like this who
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  tell you, listen, we've got to build.
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  If we don't build, we won't have enough.
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  You know that from electricity.
• 14:31
  Electricity, there's an abundance of electricity until you haven't got it.
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  And when you haven't got it, it's pretty tough to survive.
• 14:37
  or to work.
• 14:38
  We know that in South Africa when you have the breakdowns and so on.
• 14:43
  So you can't afford to be in a position without the
• 14:49
  facilities.
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  So
• 14:54
  it's great that they're doing it.
• 14:56
  And I still think There's plenty of growth, but it's always been one of my
• 14:59
  favorite companies.
• 15:01
  Just breaking news coming out now, and this is not to do with markets, but it's
• 15:04
  terribly interesting as well because it involves a really big organization
• 15:08
  and a lot of money, and that's that UEFA has just come out of their meeting and
• 15:13
  they are boycotting the next World
• 15:15
  Cup.
• 15:15
  So there's 55 European countries refused to play in the next World Cup, and that's
• 15:21
  interesting
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  because Spain and Portugal are two of the hosts.
• 15:25
  David, just quickly on that one.
• 15:26
  before we get to the markets.
• 15:28
  It is interesting, isn't it?
• 15:29
  It is, because it just exposes the corruption of FIFA.
• 15:33
  And I mean, this has been long coming.
• 15:35
  You know, just their, I don't know what their motives are, but it's good for UEFA.
• 15:42
  It's something that had to be done, had to take the power away for FIFA, which has
• 15:46
  just become the Goldman Sachs of the
• 15:48
  football, you know, of sport.
• 15:52
  Bang goes my Goldman Sachs sponsorship.
• 15:55
  What is it, the vampire?
• 15:55
  What was it?
• 15:58
  What did they call him?
• 16:00
  The vampire squid.
• 16:03
  Yeah.
• 16:03
  Well, I mean it in the context that they used it in, in the 08,
• 16:07
  09 situation, yeah.
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  Okay.
• 16:12
  Anyway, that's one to watch.
• 16:14
  Let's have a look at some markets now because the RAND, the RAND is really, I
• 16:17
  suppose it should be steady today because the dollar's weaker, but we'll come to
• 16:21
  that.
• 16:21
  the dollar end.
• 16:22
  is 16.53.
• 16:23
  British pound against the round 22.20.
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  Euro round is 19.02.
• 16:27
  Euro dollar 1.1525.
• 16:29
  And that started weakening last night, about an hour after the announcement, and
• 16:33
  has gone steadily lower, the dollar that is,
• 16:36
  throughout the day.
• 16:37
  They don't think he's going to be raising rates this year, obviously.
• 16:40
  And we've got on the gold front, gold is 4,085.
• 16:46
  Again looked at 4,000 yesterday and again has bounced back.
• 16:50
  And that's, of course, due to the weaker dollar.
• 16:52
  Nice move on the white metals, though.
• 16:53
  Platinum up 2%, palladium up 2.4%.
• 16:56
  That's being reflected in Valterra today.
• 16:58
  And we'll come to that in a moment also.
• 17:02
  Also, I will tell you what the US 10-year is.
• 17:05
  Yeah, it doesn't like what it heard.
• 17:07
  It's funny that the dollar weakening, bonds falling, yields rising, and the
• 17:14
  yield
• 17:15
  curve steepening.
• 17:16
  It's telling us something.
• 17:17
  So we must watch this bond market.
• 17:19
  The US bond is 4.683, was 4.70 earlier on.
• 17:23
  S&P 500 futures, they were up about 1.3%.
• 17:27
  Now up nicely still, though, at 0.9% higher.
• 17:33
  South African 10-year bond yield 8.77%, which is down two basis points.
• 17:38
  And on other commodities, so I'm going from one screen to the other here, Brent
• 17:42
  crude oil is down 0.7% to $90.11.
• 17:45
  That's the spot price.
• 17:46
  And the West Texas is $84.48.
• 17:48
  which is unchanged on the day.
• 17:50
  Copper is up 2.1% and Bitcoin is up 1.2% to
• 17:57
  64,725.
• 18:01
  Viv, on the white metals, I've asked you about this before.
• 18:04
  Really good numbers from Valterra yesterday.
• 18:06
  The share price going up for the second day in a row in impressive digits, 6%, 7%
• 18:12
  here and there.
• 18:13
  And with the dollar weakening, is it time for the white metals and gold to start
• 18:16
  running again?
• 18:19
  Maybe gold.
• 18:19
  I mean, platinum is basically running gold's coattails.
• 18:24
  Until like very recently, platinum had its own little thing with, you know, of
• 18:27
  course, what's happening with catalytic converters.
• 18:29
  And the platinum price used to be significantly above the gold price.
• 18:32
  I mean, that's the reason that platinum records have a bigger, you know,
• 18:36
  credibility than a gold record.
• 18:38
  You know what I mean?
• 18:39
  But right now, platinum, like it's like 1600 versus 4000.
• 18:42
  You know what I mean?
• 18:43
  That is like 40% of the price of gold.
• 18:47
  And I do think longer term, the platinum ecosystem is not as attractive as gold is
• 18:53
  at the moment.
• 18:54
  They're probably going to lose that catalytic converter market over the next
• 18:58
  little while because of the fact of electric vehicles coming into play,
• 19:01
  as well as the fact that we are seeing technological improvements in just how
• 19:04
  much platinum you need to use in those vehicles, as well as the recycling
• 19:08
  of the current vehicle market.
• 19:10
  And so if, for instance, you imagine in the future world, we're going to have
• 19:13
  maybe 50% more electric vehicles, those petrol
• 19:16
  vehicles, those diesel vehicles that were used in the past are going to be recycled,
• 19:20
  that platinum taken out, and then it's going to be spread even further among the
• 19:23
  current new vehicles to be sold because of the fact that it's going to be less
• 19:30
  material demanded because of technological improvements, etc.
• 19:33
  So the platinum market, I think, depends almost entirely on what's happening with
• 19:35
  gold right now.
• 19:37
  And gold, like you said, is kind of finding some support around $4,000.
• 19:40
  If it goes back to $5,000, $6,000, platinum will rally along with it, just
• 19:44
  because it's a substitute.
• 19:45
  platinum has its own its own market its own demand uh i think it's probably pretty
• 19:50
  negative right now just because the current market i
• 19:52
  think looks very uh very unstable in fact if there's only stability there's going to
• 19:57
  be downward trends Okay.
• 20:00
  On the JSC today, Mondi was the best performer, up 12%.
• 20:02
  Valterra, 6.75% higher.
• 20:06
  African Rainbow Minerals, up 5.7%.
• 20:08
  Sibanyu Stillwater, 5.3% higher.
• 20:11
  On the downside, British American Tobacco fell 3.7%.
• 20:14
  AVI down 2.8%.
• 20:15
  Omnia, 2.25% weaker.
• 20:17
  Bytes down 1.8%.
• 20:19
  And Pepcor down 1.2%.
• 20:21
  David, I didn't speak to you about Kevin Walsh.
• 20:24
  I spoke to Viv, but I want your views on it.
• 20:27
  He's.
• 20:29
  I spoke to a multi-asset income fund manager yesterday, and he said
• 20:36
  two words.
• 20:36
  He said there's doubt and there's uncertainty and markets don't like that.
• 20:39
  He was very unhappy in a quiet way about the Walsh presentation last night.
• 20:45
  Would you agree?
• 20:46
  And a final question for both of you.
• 20:47
  Have the cracks been papered or plastered over in the last 24, 36 hours after the
• 20:54
  results
• 20:55
  and after the Fed?
• 20:56
  or are they threatening to widen?
• 20:58
  David, with you first on Walsh and the cracks.
• 21:02
  I think that they're probably threatening to widen in the sense that it's
• 21:09
  a theme that I've been pushing for a long time, that even before Walsh came on, I
• 21:15
  said, I always used to
• 21:16
  joke about Jerome Pallas.
• 21:18
  He doesn't know what he's doing.
• 21:19
  You know, they're not on top of this.
• 21:21
  They have no idea.
• 21:23
  And this arose out of COVID.
• 21:25
  The disruption and destruction that COVID did, we haven't got over it.
• 21:32
  We still don't understand where we are, the changes to supply chains and the
• 21:36
  changes to the way we live.
• 21:38
  And I think what he's doing is right.
• 21:40
  But I think that it's going to take a lot of pain to get it right.
• 21:46
  And the bond market's telling you that.
• 21:48
  If you look, the bond vigilantes are coming in, pushing the 30-year right to
• 21:52
  the highest, I think, in 20-odd years.
• 21:55
  You've mentioned the 10-year rate.
• 21:57
  And I think that's all the concerns about being in the bond market.
• 22:01
  And I think it's reflected in the dollar.
• 22:04
  That's why I say there's another market.
• 22:06
  There are different parallel universes because the AI market is something and the
• 22:11
  equity markets are completely different, although
• 22:13
  there should be some kind of connect.
• 22:16
  But, Lindsay, no one's on top of it.
• 22:20
  We haven't got on top of it.
• 22:22
  uh at all i don't know whether they will but at least he's trying in that respect
• 22:26
  but uh what he should do i don't think he
• 22:29
  even knows what to do that's that's why you know he i'd he he's he's in charge of
• 22:34
  it and i think that's
• 22:36
  the message he's putting out in nine weeks what the hell could i do you know it's
• 22:40
  going to take a long time but i i think there's going to
• 22:43
  be more pain on that side okay in that case and and what about the the
• 22:49
  question of the cracks are they going to open wider or have they been plastered
• 22:53
  over or at least wallpapered over for now, the
• 22:56
  cracks in the market?
• 22:57
  Because there has been a crack recently.
• 22:59
  Oh, I see, in the market.
• 23:01
  Yeah, general market.
• 23:02
  No, I'm not worried about the market.
• 23:04
  I'm not worried about those cracks.
• 23:06
  I'm not worried about the money that's being spent.
• 23:09
  What I do, you know, when I do worry, when you say the cracks on, I think it's more
• 23:13
  in the bond market, more inflation area.
• 23:16
  I still think there's worse to come than that one.
• 23:18
  Or a lot more uncertainty to come.
• 23:20
  Viv, your opinion on that?
• 23:22
  Cracks opening wider or being filled in?
• 23:26
  Look, I remember saying, I don't know who exactly it was, like there's a lot of ruin
• 23:30
  in a country.
• 23:33
  The system we have right now has a lot of ruin in it because it can handle a lot of
• 23:35
  pain.
• 23:36
  You know what I mean?
• 23:37
  It can handle a lot of mismanagement.
• 23:38
  It can handle a lot of trouble.
• 23:41
  And so one of the reasons we've seen such stability in things until recently is that
• 23:46
  the stability, the power of the system was able
• 23:48
  to kind of, you know, handle the burden of all the garbage being dumped on it.
• 23:54
  And I think that maybe we are seeing signs that some of that is coming through, but
• 23:59
  at the same time, it's kind of being rescued.
• 24:01
  I mean, like me and David are in this whole AI kind of cult right now, if you
• 24:06
  want to call it that.
• 24:07
  And we are seeing a lot of positivity coming through in terms of these new
• 24:11
  technological developments.
• 24:12
  I recently saw an interview with Elon Musk, and besides what you say, he's being
• 24:15
  pretty prescient about the general trends, about the timeline.
• 24:18
  His timeline tends to be quite...
• 24:20
  not off, but I mean, the general trends have been quite positive in terms of like
• 24:23
  his predictions about where things are going.
• 24:25
  And he's talked about the fact that a couple of decades, we're probably not
• 24:27
  going to be worried about money.
• 24:29
  And I think that is the kind of stuff that this kind of technology kind of brings to
• 24:33
  place.
• 24:33
  The fact that we are seeing such an incredible technology coming through, so
• 24:38
  powerful.
• 24:39
  And I mean, I know David talks about co-pilot.
• 24:41
  David, I've got to tell you, you've got to try Claude.
• 24:43
  For some unknowable reason, Microsoft's system works better with Claude than it
• 24:47
  does with its own AI system.
• 24:50
  But I was just listening to our admin staff today talking about it.
• 24:55
  And, you know, these are ladies that are, you know, Some of them are not the most
• 24:59
  technologically, you know, to this, you know,
• 25:01
  enthusiastic or whatever.
• 25:03
  And they were literally talking about how they cannot live without Claude at the
• 25:06
  moment.
• 25:07
  What do you pay for?
• 25:09
  Do you pay per person, Viv, if you don't mind me asking?
• 25:11
  Yeah, you pay per person.
• 25:13
  We're not doing the fable stuff.
• 25:14
  This is not like, you know, we're not trying to solve, cancel anything like
• 25:18
  that.
• 25:19
  We're not doing massive programming.
• 25:20
  But Claude, you know, the paid for Claude that you do as the add-on for Microsoft
• 25:26
  Office.
• 25:27
  Anyone that would Excel, especially Excel, should just use it.
• 25:33
  It's a no-brainer for like $20 a month.
• 25:36
  But, you know, the hooking with PowerPoint and the other, you know, Outlook and so
• 25:40
  on, but Excel especially.
• 25:42
  And knowing the office place where you're basically pulling statements and you're
• 25:45
  trying to get calculations done, it is an absolute game changer.
• 25:49
  But I'm just saying when it comes to the deductible improves.
• 25:51
  $20 a month.
• 25:52
  $20 a month.
• 25:52
  It's nothing.
• 25:55
  It's nothing.
• 25:57
  And it's literally like hiring a smart university student to come and sit next to
• 26:02
  you.
• 26:03
  And every time you say, find me the profits on this thing or find me the
• 26:05
  equation.
• 26:06
  If you're using the more advanced models, I mean, it goes online.
• 26:11
  And I did a spreadsheet the other day.
• 26:14
  And there's some data that wasn't in the spreadsheet.
• 26:15
  It said it's not on the spreadsheet.
• 26:17
  Do you want me to go online and find it for you?
• 26:19
  I said, yes.
• 26:20
  It goes online.
• 26:21
  It finds the numbers that I needed from the spreadsheet, folds it in my
• 26:25
  spreadsheet.
• 26:26
  It gives me references for where they got it from.
• 26:28
  So I can check to make sure.
• 26:31
  I swear to you right now, David, you could not find...
• 26:33
  I've got to go on the court.
• 26:35
  I'm giving up my AI profile.
• 26:38
  And I'll cancel that one.
• 26:40
  I'll tell you right now.
• 26:41
  You university graduates, if you come to me, 50% of them would not be able to do
• 26:44
  that.
• 26:45
  What you did right there.
• 26:47
  Good go.
• 26:48
  I've probably explained it to you that.
• 26:50
  Yeah, so it was amazing.
• 26:51
  This is the thing.
• 26:53
  There are cracks here.
• 26:54
  But the cracks are kind of being...
• 26:55
  like plastered over or reinforced by the fact that there's almost this new
• 26:59
  juggernaut coming through.
• 27:01
  And in a normal environment, I would agree with David's assumptions and with some of
• 27:05
  the stuff you're saying about what's been happening.
• 27:07
  But just because we are seeing such power come through the system, it's almost going
• 27:12
  to make it irrelevant
• 27:14
  unless this system, unless this juggernaut gets stopped by technological changes or
• 27:20
  some kind of
• 27:21
  wall being hit.
• 27:22
  And I don't see that happening at the moment.
• 27:24
  I mean I think you guys talked about the fact that we saw that open AI system doing
• 27:29
  that crazy thing about leaving yourself
• 27:31
  messages and other things and so on.
• 27:34
  I mean, that is the stuff that's in the labs.
• 27:36
  That's not the stuff that you are seeing on your apps, is it?
• 27:40
  This just shows how much progress there's been in the last year.
• 27:45
  Remember, the stuff that we are using right now is like nine months, a year old,
• 27:49
  because that's how long it takes before they give it to us.
• 27:51
  All these labs, when Meta is going out and saying they want to spend...
• 27:54
  $279 billion.
• 27:56
  They are seeing things in their labs that we are not using at the moment.
• 28:01
  When Google goes and spends $200 billion a year, when Microsoft is doing this extra
• 28:04
  spending, understand, they're not seeing what we are seeing.
• 28:07
  They're seeing, effectively, one year into the future.
• 28:10
  And because they have those things, the one year into the future models right now
• 28:13
  in their hands.
• 28:15
  And the fact that they are willing to spend this extra money on it is something
• 28:18
  that gives me a lot of confidence.
• 28:20
  Very good.
• 28:22
  Nice way to end the show, apart from the fact it's got to end with the JSE.
• 28:25
  The best performing index was the resources, 20, up 3.25%.
• 28:29
  Industrials rallied by 0.2%.
• 28:31
  Financials were a 1% gainer.
• 28:33
  And the all-show itself finished at 111,873, rounding it up.
• 28:38
  And that was a 1.3% gain.
• 28:40
  Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.
• 28:42
  Fascinating stuff.
• 28:43
  Viv Govender is from Ranswiss.
• 28:44
  David Shapiro is from Sasfin Securities.
• 28:48
  And that was the 5 o'clock shadow.
• 28:50
  The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and
• 28:54
  various contributors and do not reflect the policy,
• 28:57
  position or opinion of any other agency, organisation, employer or company
• 29:03
  associated with
• 29:04
  StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.
• 29:06
  Assumptions made on the analyses are not reflective of the position of any other
• 29:11
  entity other than the speaker or the author.
• 29:13
  And since we are critically thinking human beings, these views are always subject to
• 29:18
  change, revision, and revision.
• 29:20
  and rethinking at any time.
• 29:22
  Please do not hold us to them in perpetuity.