Latest / Strictly Business / The 5 o' Clock Shadow with Schalk Louw

Transcript

The 5 o' Clock Shadow with Schalk Louw · Strictly Business

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.
0:08
And as always on a Wednesday, I speak to Skulk Lowe, Portfolio Manager, PSG Wealth,
0:14
Old Oak Division, Cape Town.
0:16
What a time.
0:18
What a time to be alive.
0:20
What a time to be a gold trader, investor.
0:22
What a time to be an investor in any of the asset classes that we usually talk
0:24
about, Skulk.
0:26
Yeah, I mean, what?
0:28
What can we say?
0:31
Every week we sort of say, is this it?
0:35
And then we say, no, it's just crazy.
0:38
$2,000 per ounce.
0:40
And then we went through that and we still made the joke.
0:43
I think that same day when it broke to $2,000 and we said, I still ask you,
0:47
remember the days when it was trading below $2,000?
0:50
And we still laughed.
0:52
Maybe too soon.
0:55
And I mean, so we...
0:56
broke through the $3,000, $4,000.
1:00
And, I mean, we still choked, I think, a week, no, two weeks ago, two weeks ago,
1:05
that's the last time we chatted,
1:07
about some of these economists and analysts and people now, you know, coming
1:11
forward and saying, big houses,
1:13
I think it was Bank of America that came out two weeks ago stating, no, they're
1:17
adjusting their forecast, $5,000.
1:19
And boom, it didn't take two weeks for us to pass that.
1:23
And now I see a few reports stating that.
1:26
$6,000 is just going to be easy.
1:27
This year, and I've got another one that says $10,000 is the target.
1:32
You can pick a number, basically.
1:33
My worry is that Donald Trump will suddenly wake up and say, wait a second,
1:38
I've got 8,000 tons of this stuff.
1:40
Let's offload a bit so we can do some of the things that will win me the midterms.
1:44
But that's just the wildest of scenarios.
1:49
I will say this now, and this is the first time I'm going to say it and the last time
1:54
I'm going to say it.
1:56
because I'll be shot down.
1:58
The gold price peaked this morning, and I'll tell you why.
2:01
I know.
2:02
Sit down.
2:03
I am sitting.
2:04
Have another sip.
2:05
Now, what I want you to do is listen to me carefully.
2:08
It's based on nothing.
2:09
The fundamentals are great.
2:10
The dollar is going to continue to be debased.
2:13
The bond market is going to come under pressure.
2:15
Equities are going to come under pressure, and gold will still be a safe haven.
2:19
Inflation will run away.
2:20
Look at the CRB index, 399.
2:22
Highest level since it was, as you said off air to me cleverly,
2:26
459 back in 2008 after the global financial crisis.
2:31
But anyway, on my 10-year graph, it's at an all-time high.
2:34
So that's inflationary.
2:35
So all this will come together for gold.
2:37
But if you look at one of the tried and trusted technical analysis methods,
2:43
when there used to be the old days of open, high, low, close bar graphs.
2:49
and there weren't 24-hour markets when there was a civilized gold market that
2:54
opened at one time and
2:56
closed at another in New York, you would get gaps in the chart.
2:58
Let's say the market like it did on last Friday closed
3:03
4,980, something like that.
3:07
Well, that was the high.
3:09
And then the next day it opened close to 5,100.
3:13
So there was a gap.
3:14
And then there's been another gap and another gap.
3:17
These three gaps are...
3:18
The breakaway gap, the first one.
3:21
The runaway gap, the second one.
3:22
The exhaustion gap, the third one.
3:25
And I don't know if there has been a gap because I can't for the life of me find a
3:32
chart that has an opening and a closing
3:34
a market.
3:36
But I think there's been three gaps.
3:38
I think today was the exhaustion gap.
3:40
And I do think that after the Fed decision tonight, everyone's going to go, OK,
3:41
and start selling some of these asset classes that have served them so well.
3:45
I've said my piece, Skullclaw.
3:47
You heard it here first.
3:50
Or it will just continue running.
3:55
That was Skullclaw from PSG.
3:59
No, I mean, Lindsay, I think I've had this question a few times, not just today, but
4:06
the past few days.
4:08
And you and I, I mean, this is a listening podcast, so people luckily can't see what
4:12
I look like now.
4:14
I think you look very well.
4:15
I'd like to see a pre and post gold bull market picture.
4:19
But anyway, carry on.
4:22
You know, we've got both a few grey hairs.
4:25
So we've seen a few things.
4:28
And the one thing that I tell all my clients and all the people that ask me,
4:31
the one thing that these type of rallies has taught me over the years is not to
4:38
call
4:38
tops.
4:40
No.
4:41
That's it.
4:43
That's it.
4:44
I think personally, if you ask me, do I think these levels are totally overdone?
4:48
And when I talk about these levels, I'm talking about gold.
4:50
I'm talking about silver.
4:51
I'm talking about, I mean, I'm looking at the silver price.
4:54
But it's just crazy.
4:56
And people are talking about not.
4:59
The hundreds of $50 or $200, they're talking about $400.
5:05
That's going to be easy, $400 per ounce on silver.
5:07
That's massive, massive gains.
5:10
And who am I to jump in front of this freight train?
5:13
I mean, it's going at about a gazillion miles per hour.
5:17
I'm not going to be jumping in front of this thing for now.
5:20
And you also, while we were off here, you were talking about somewhere along the
5:24
line, they were going to be selling them.
5:26
They've got over 8,000 tons of this stuff.
5:28
Yeah, it's got a massive amount.
5:32
But that was just a side conspiracy sort of theory.
5:36
What would Donald Trump do?
5:37
He's the sort of person that would say, OK, it's sitting there doing absolutely
5:41
nothing,
5:43
apart from backing the dollar to a certain extent, of course.
5:45
We haven't got a gold standard anymore.
5:47
But the fact that that stuff is there is a support for the US economy and the dollar,
5:54
in my opinion.
5:54
But, yeah, don't worry about Donald Trump and his gold reserves.
5:58
Let's talk about what you're invested in.
6:01
We've never really mentioned it, but I think you're mainly in equities, aren't
6:05
you?
6:05
You're not in ETFs or bullion itself.
6:09
Can you tell us?
6:10
Are you allowed to tell me?
6:12
Yeah, I'll tell you.
6:14
I'll tell you.
6:14
I mean, it's easy because I've been quite verbal about this and seeing that I
6:20
haven't sold anything yet.
6:22
Well done.
6:24
It's people can sort of go and...
6:26
reference things I said previously.
6:28
So, I mean, on the local front, I'm still invested in gold fields.
6:31
And I mean, you and I are at the interesting conversation.
6:37
And great question there.
6:39
I mean, I'm going to, actually, I actually want to read this question to the
6:44
listeners.
6:44
And I need to really filter through Lindsay's because sometimes his WhatsApp
6:49
is not.
6:51
Well, I was sitting in the physiotherapist's waiting room and I
6:56
didn't have my glasses with me, so I kept on missing out letters.
6:58
I totally understood you.
6:59
So he said, hi,
7:01
can you look at a South African gold miner and PGM miner and work out the dollar
7:07
margins
7:09
at these levels?
7:11
So I had a look at it.
7:12
And great question, Lindsay.
7:14
I mean, what a question.
7:16
I sort of...
7:19
mind-boggled today when I looked at ASML's profit margins and are they talking about
7:26
51
7:28
and 52 percent those are the top of profit margins these these companies are you're
7:32
talking about the tech
7:34
you're talking about the tech company based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands okay
7:39
so get you to give some sort of context to what you're gonna say now about
7:41
the miners that's it and and you know the likes of the NVIDIA's are running at
7:46
similar profit margins gross profit margins.
7:48
But I mean, this is This is our tech companies.
7:51
When I look at the, let's call it the most recent results, and
7:57
I use gold fields now again, and I'll do, just for fun, I'll do Anglo Gold as well.
8:03
Gold fields, when they reported their six-month ended results for June, so they
8:10
haven't done December yet.
8:12
If you look at the sales and you look at the average gold price, which they mined
8:17
on that stage, I think it was something like 1,000.
8:19
$1,900 or something like that, which was the all-in cost.
8:23
If you look at the actual growth profit margin back then, it was just shy of 55%
8:31
because we had such a massive run in the gold price.
8:34
So I asked my team just to have a look,
8:37
and they looked at the average gold price over that period for that, let's call it
8:43
six months.
8:43
And I just said, well, let's use the $5,260, which is now.
8:48
If this is going to be the norm, the growth profit margin is going to increase
8:53
from
8:53
54.7% to 72.8%.
8:58
Goodness me.
8:59
That's a money printing machine.
9:01
I mean, Anglo Gold, similar story, went from 47.3%
9:05
and at current gold price levels, that will increase to 68%.
9:10
I mean, that is literally, as I mentioned, a money printing machine.
9:15
And yeah.
9:15
I'm still invested in gold fields,
9:17
so this is still my preferred entry into the local gold miners.
9:25
And in my international portfolio, I've got a investment in wheat and precious
9:31
metals,
9:33
which is predominantly gold.
9:35
They sort of assist the gold.
9:36
It's a very interesting structure.
9:37
I'm not going to go into this because otherwise this is going to be an hour
9:42
podcast again.
9:44
But both of these companies have been…
9:44
or miners has been doing doing really really well uh and so i like the geared
9:50
effect
9:51
and also if you can recall i think it was about a year ago i told you the gold
9:58
miners lagged the actual gold price yes
10:00
and and for that reason i i
10:00
did prefer to rather go into the miners that did catch up naturally but i mean as
10:07
i mentioned at at 70
10:09
odd percentage uh growth profit margins i will not be selling this is going to be
10:14
companies that's going to be either
10:16
paying a heap of dividends very, very soon, or going to start looking at other
10:22
opportunities,
10:24
buying back shares and those kind of things.
10:26
So, yeah, very, very,
10:27
very happy to still be in.
10:31
And I think you asked for the PGMs while we're on that topic.
10:36
Yeah, because they haven't been lagging.
10:38
They're just coming a little bit late to the party.
10:41
But when I look at these things, And when I look at the lack of investment in South
10:47
African mines and the low stockpiles and everything,
10:49
and there's going to be a deficit this year and maybe next year as well,
10:51
I can't help but think that these things are relatively thin because there's not
10:57
much metal produced.
10:59
And if you take the market capitalization of any company that produces platinum
11:04
group metals and
11:06
its associated spin-offs, it's very small.
11:07
It can be not manipulated, but it can be pushed very high.
11:10
very, very quickly.
11:11
I mean, even higher than it is now, of course.
11:15
Yeah, no, no, no, for sure.
11:16
For sure.
11:17
I mean, but I mean, just I ran through that one as well.
11:22
I ran through the platinum minus.
11:25
I chose Volterra because it's the bigger one, and I like the way they report.
11:30
And just to, again, put some context to some of the listeners out there,
11:36
when we sat here exactly a year ago, We already had a sort of a gold frenzy.
11:43
It didn't start in the beginning of 2025.
11:46
This has been a bull run going on, you know, since just post-COVID.
11:51
Yes, it did.
11:54
The aggression of the moves has been really increased a lot.
12:00
But the gold price was already, you know,
12:05
doing extremely well this time last year.
12:08
This time...
12:09
last year, the platinum price was still very much the $950 level.
12:14
Exactly.
12:15
It was lagging, yes.
12:17
Yes, and only started, if you really go and look at that graph, actually, I
12:23
actually got the graph now.
12:25
May the 19th, it was still below $1,000, still trading $900 odd dollars.
12:29
And from there, it moved.
12:30
So when you take Volterra's growth profit margin for the six-month end it again, 30
12:37
June.
12:37
So that's.
12:38
Very much still prior to the platinum, palladium, rhodium prices started to move,
12:44
the growth profit margins was trading at 12.1%.
12:48
Now, if you take their mix, and they've got a mixture of 44% platinum, 22%
12:54
palladium, and 34%
12:56
rhodium, that's as 30 June,
12:58
their growth profit margin now will kick up to 53%.
13:02
And so that's also...
13:05
You know, it's very glamorous.
13:06
It's very glamorous compared to the doldrums that this thing has been in.
13:10
Year on year, the platinum price, incidentally, up 170%, 27%
13:17
year to date.
13:19
But I'm just going to get my graph up as I look at this.
13:22
$2,630 an ounce is the prevailing price.
13:28
Has been high.
13:29
Look at that.
13:30
I didn't notice that spike it had, too.
13:32
What was that, about 2,800, 2,850, something like that, recently?
13:37
But anyway, it's back a bit.
13:38
And 10 years, 10 years, let's go for 10 years.
13:42
Just trying to see.
13:43
This is an all-time record high, isn't it?
13:47
Yes, yes, yes.
13:48
That's for the white metals.
13:50
And that thing took off.
13:51
The base is these.
13:53
Let's say that Elon Musk or someone else comes up with some pill that will mean
13:59
that you can live
14:01
for 500 years or something.
14:03
It's a terrifying prospect, but it will happen.
14:04
I don't know what sort of state you'll be in in 500 years, but you can wait.
14:09
And all you have to do is wait a long time.
14:10
You have a look at something like silver or platinum, where the market goes
14:17
sideways, doesn't do anything for,
14:19
I don't know, five years, ten years.
14:19
I'm looking at this platinum chart back in.
14:22
It essentially went sideways from February 2016 to
14:29
the takeoff point.
14:31
which you just talked about May of this year.
14:34
So nine years of doing absolutely nothing.
14:38
A couple of little blips here and there, but the blips were always smoothed out.
14:42
So a smoothing thing is around about 1,000, 900 to 1,000 for all that time, and
14:49
nothing happens.
14:51
Options are granted above the market.
14:52
Options are granted below the market.
14:54
And as soon as it takes off, people scramble.
14:56
The fundamentals suddenly change.
14:58
And off we go.
14:59
And that's what's happening now.
15:00
Where can it go?
15:01
I don't know.
15:02
It's blue sky on this one.
15:03
It really is.
15:04
If the world economy keeps on going with its status as an industrial metal, the
15:11
PGMs in general,
15:13
it could go anywhere, Skulk.
15:15
It could go anywhere.
15:17
Have you got exposure to this as well?
15:19
Oh, yes.
15:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:23
I've got it.
15:25
But I mentioned that back then as well.
15:27
I do have Impala Platinum and Volterra, both of them.
15:29
Originally, I only had Impala Platinum.
15:31
But then luckily, luckily, when Volterra were kicked out of Anglo-American,
15:33
I decided to, rather than selling that little position, to increase it.
15:38
That wasn't luck.
15:39
That was skill.
15:40
What are you talking about?
15:41
That little position.
15:42
Yeah, yeah.
15:42
But we also had the discussion back then.
15:44
It was mainly due to the fact that we had the overhang of stock.
15:48
And Volterra back then was sort of, I would say,
15:53
unfairly punished for the overhanging stock.
15:57
And I used that opportunity to buy into it.
15:59
But here's the thing.
16:00
I think a lot of listeners will look at that and say, Scott, well, that's my dad.
16:04
I mean, he's also you know my dad.
16:05
I mean, he's also in the investment industry.
16:08
And he'll always when you did something right, and then he'll sort of say with a
16:15
question mark, and for my next trick.
16:17
Yes.
16:17
So, And to the listeners, I think we're the listeners are listening today and say,
16:23
what do I do?
16:25
So I'm not selling my gold yet, but I do have a different style of investing.
16:29
I'm a long-term investor.
16:31
And for this, I didn't bait the firm, so to speak.
16:36
I do have overweight positions in gold and PGMs. But
16:41
I'm not a if the gold price should go back to $3,500, I will still be happy.
16:48
But here's the thing, and we talked about our gray hair.
16:53
Last time we saw something like this, and you mentioned it earlier, you talked about
16:59
the CRB Commodity Index,
17:01
which hit highs there in 2008.
17:04
That period is very significant.
17:06
That period, that five-year period between 2003 and 2008, is extremely significant
17:13
because...
17:15
We had a similar environment, and I don't want to say, let's talk about wars,
17:19
inflation, and Trump,
17:21
and those kind of things.
17:23
I'm talking purely about, suddenly there was a massive interest in commodities,
17:26
and the commodities that South Africa is some of the largest producers of in the
17:31
world,
17:34
attracted more interest.
17:35
And that suddenly helped us, that suddenly helped our economy to grow way quicker
17:41
than...
17:43
everybody expected.
17:45
We've already seen the IMF now come out a week or two ago stating that we're not
17:49
going to be growing 1% anymore.
17:51
It's going to be more towards the 1.5%.
17:53
Hey, I wouldn't even listen to them.
17:54
I mean, I listen to this and I suddenly look at the RAND in the 15 RAND levels.
18:00
I look at the massive interest.
18:02
We're the largest platinum producer in the world.
18:04
We're the second largest palladium producer in the world.
18:08
We're by far the largest rhodium producer in the world and we're still the eighth
18:14
largest gold producer in the world.
18:16
So now suddenly you had an environment you had an environment
18:20
where we had this interest in the commodities that helped our currency back
18:25
in the days.
18:25
You remember gold price, the rent was there around about the 2003 levels were
18:31
12, 13 rent to the dollar and then went below five rent.
18:35
More importantly, we had an Yeah.
18:37
unemployment level in 2003 of 30 percent very similar to what we we're seeing today
18:44
30 percent unemployment level by 2000 in 2007 our unemployment levels was
18:51
at 21.5 percent so so it was great for unemployment but suddenly there there was
18:58
flows we had
19:00
inflows we we had flows and commodities and that's spilled over to other
19:02
industries.
19:04
So I suddenly...
19:06
I'm looking at smaller companies.
19:09
You know I always, well not always, for the past five years liked my SA Inc
19:15
companies and that has done well for me.
19:17
But I mean take for example a company like Afromat.
19:20
Predominantly it's an African story.
19:22
It's the second time I've heard that name in the last two days.
19:25
Yeah people are having a look at this.
19:26
Yes go on.
19:28
Yeah, this is, I mean, suddenly this company is looking really attractive.
19:33
It's like, if you go pull up the graph while I'm, rather than making yourself a
19:40
cup of tea again, just pull up a graph there of AfriMet.
19:42
And you'll see it's been a company that actually came back.
19:43
I mean, they went from being a pure, let's call it,
19:47
quarry type of miner to buying into iron ore.
19:54
And in an environment where iron ore sort of retraced.
19:58
sort of under pressure.
19:59
And then they went and bought into cement.
20:02
And cement also, we're looking at things like PPCs a few years ago, also struggled.
20:08
So they sort of caught a perfect storm on two commodities that were struggling a
20:14
bit.
20:14
But they've managed.
20:16
This is the one thing about Afromat, great management.
20:19
They've always been able to work through these storms and position themselves
20:26
better in the,
20:28
let's call it the...
20:30
bad environments and i think this is going to be no different now when you look at
20:34
and and i it's come down i mean it's more it's more than halved hasn't
20:36
it well it's just it's about half it's come down from 70 back in what is it uh
20:41
gosh i can't uh yeah
20:43
what is it denominated in it says here 6930 what is that 69 69 man 30 a share
20:49
what is that
20:51
yeah that's that's that's a share price yeah i know i'm just saying it's the dots
20:56
are the decimal points all in the wrong way but anyway
20:58
It's gone from, let's call it 70 down to 43 at the moment.
21:02
It hasn't got the base that I would like to do a silver or a platinum or to a
21:08
lesser extent gold.
21:10
But I see what you mean.
21:12
But what I'm alluding to is when you look at that period 2003, that period,
21:17
PPC in 2003 was trading at six rand a share.
21:22
By 2007, it was trading at 33 rand a share.
21:27
We didn't have Kumba iron ore back then because I think it was only unbundled out
21:32
of
21:34
Anglo-American as well, I think 2007-ish. But when you look at something like Rio
21:40
Tinto, it's also in things like iron ore.
21:42
When you look at Rio Tinto share price,
21:43
it was trading at £1,150 in 2003 and went up all the way to £5,000 in 2007.
21:50
So it's maybe not a like-for-like scenario, but I'm starting to look at
21:55
these secondaries.
21:57
Which areas, which sectors are going to benefit from this massive precious metals
22:04
rallies?
22:06
That's the other thing that I want you to do.
22:06
I couldn't ask you this week because I already asked you a question.
22:09
I want someone who's clever enough to say how much money are they going to make with
22:16
these margins that Skank has just been talking about compared to how much
22:18
money they were making five years ago.
22:20
And say to yourself, right, I'm the Treasury.
22:21
I'm the Treasury Department.
22:23
how much more tax is SARS going to receive in 2026 versus 2021,
22:30
for example?
22:31
Because it must be a bonanza for the local treasury.
22:37
Undoubtedly.
22:38
This is going to be massive for treasury.
22:40
This is going to be massive for taxes.
22:42
And a lot of people say, well, but just remember, goldfields only got South Deep
22:47
still left in South Africa.
22:49
Agnagold don't have any South African mines left.
22:52
It's interesting.
22:52
I can't remember what the company's name or mine's name is.
22:56
But we've had the first gold listing in, what was it, 20 years now, a few weeks
23:01
ago.
23:02
And why?
23:04
Because they said, well,
23:06
when the gold price was trading at $1,700, $1,800,
23:12
they couldn't start up the mine again because it's too expensive to.
23:17
Yeah, well, at $5,200, $5,300.
23:21
I see quite a few decommissioned gold mines or even platinum mines.
23:27
Lady of Mines, that's going to suddenly be started up again.
23:31
And that's going to be naturally good for people that need to be employed to go and
23:35
work at the mines.
23:37
This is going to be good for, like you mentioned, the taxes.
23:39
And it's going to have the spillover effect.
23:40
It's going to go through to the likes of the shop right checkers where people need
23:45
to shop for food.
23:47
Mr.
23:49
Price, which we saw today.
23:51
Lewis, which we also saw today.
23:53
I mean, I might sound like… And good for Capitech as well and other banks, of
23:54
course.
23:54
Correct.
23:55
The same sort of thing.
23:55
Yeah, OK, I get your point.
23:57
South Africa, there's so many reasons to have a really good look at South Africa.
24:04
I had so many podcasts in the last quarter of last year that made me think 2026 is
24:11
going to be better than 2025.
24:13
And 2025 was a good year for the JSE, even outside of the miners.
24:18
I reference John Bickard, for example.
24:20
His last interview with me, he was ragingly bullish about South Africa and
24:27
the sort of companies that you're
24:29
talking about.
24:31
Anyway, let's not get too much into that.
24:33
We've got the Fed tonight.
24:35
We've got Jerome Powell.
24:37
He's going to keep his cool.
24:39
He's very collected, that man.
24:41
And he'll stay there.
24:43
He'll leave rates unchanged.
24:45
But then he's going to say some things afterwards, which is what we're all going
24:47
to hang on all of those words, of course.
24:49
And when I look at the CRB index, I think of inflation and I think he'll sound a
24:52
cautionary note on inflation,
24:54
especially with the dollar under pressure.
24:54
And that's one of the reasons why I think the market may say, wait a second, this is
25:00
all a little bit too frothy, given what he's just said.
25:02
Let's take a few profits off the table here.
25:03
It's one of my reasonings for this, apart from the analysis of the potential gap
25:10
technical analysis trade skulk.
25:12
So I've got a case.
25:12
I've got a case.
25:13
You've got a case.
25:14
I've got a case.
25:15
Your case is stronger than my case, as usual.
25:16
And...
25:17
A case I have.
25:19
The thing is, I hear what you say.
25:23
And I know they're fighting for the 7,000 mark on the S&P 500 currently.
25:29
So if you say the market starts looking through this and it starts becoming a
25:34
little bit frothy,
25:36
and we do suddenly see a bit of a retracement in markets, remember, gold is
25:43
still seen as a safe haven,
25:45
as sort of a protector against weaker markets.
25:47
Again, I think not calling tops or bottoms, I agree with
25:53
Biggie, John Beckard.
25:55
I do think there's still a lot of opportunities.
26:00
And this is sort of a, I know history doesn't necessarily always repeat itself,
26:06
but what I say often rhymes.
26:08
I do think that when you look at South Africa, we are in a very similar scenario.
26:12
And just be careful.
26:14
Looking at last year, because I had so many of my colleagues in this industry,
26:20
which I've heard over the past few weeks, we shouldn't see a repeat of last year in
26:26
terms of returns for South Africa.
26:28
Why not?
26:28
Yeah, that's the thing.
26:29
If you look at that period, 2005, 2006, 2007, I can't remember the exact levels,
26:35
but we had a great recovery in the latter part of 2004.
26:40
And then 2005, the market has grown 30%.
26:44
percent, 30 odd percent.
26:45
And then everybody said, ah, we won't see a repeat of, and then it went like 70% of
26:50
the next year.
26:52
And also I think it was, it was the final year was before the, for the crash of 2008
26:58
did also something about 40, 41%.
27:00
So be careful.
27:02
Um, I think my message to the listeners out there is have a longer term view and,
27:04
and make sure you don't have serious overweight position.
27:08
If you've got a serious overweight position in something like the S&P 500 or
27:13
ai stocks those type of things i would caution you now just to have a look and
27:19
and maybe if you've got an overweight position in
27:21
gold miners gold or silver only have those things again same story just maybe just be
27:26
careful
27:27
We've got a crazy market now.
27:29
Yes, we have indeed.
27:31
Let's have a look at some of those crazy prices.
27:33
Dollar around 15.95.
27:34
British pound against the round, 21.95.
27:36
Euro around 19.05.
27:38
Euro dollar, I haven't got the bit on the end.
27:41
It was above 120 yesterday.
27:42
It went to about 120.50.
27:44
I've got it at 119.
27:46
I don't know why they've suddenly cut off the last two digits on my ShareNet screen.
27:49
But anyway, very good service, by the way, if you're listening ShareNet, apart from
27:55
your Euro dollar, which I don't like.
27:57
Gold price is $52.62.
27:58
It was $53.45 at one stage this morning, but still up 1.4% or $73.
28:04
And that's platinum price $2,618 at $81 or 3.2% palladium.
28:11
That's the star of the PGM show up 8% to $2,031,
28:14
$151 per ounce.
28:18
Let's have a look at the all important other commodities.
28:22
notably the energy price why do i lose my cursor do you find as you get older you
28:28
lose your cursor on your screen
28:30
more skill don't answer that all the things i've lost i miss my
28:35
mind the most brent
28:38
nice one uh brent crude oil 68.5 cents per barrel at 0.7 sorry mr trump gasoline
28:45
prices are not
28:47
199 a gallon in many states across the u.s not at these prices The West Texas crude,
28:51
$62.90, up 0.8% gold price.
28:55
Oh, we've given you that.
28:56
Sorry, silver, $113 per ounce, up 0.9%.
29:00
Copper, $5.92 per pound, up 0.9%.
29:04
And yeah, looking good.
29:05
I was looking at the Baltic Index the other day.
29:09
That's been doing so well as international trade shrugs off the tariff story from
29:14
April of last year.
29:16
And trade going along very nicely.
29:18
Thank you very much.
29:19
So the Baltic Freight Index doing very well.
29:21
So lovely across the board more or less on the commodities that we look at.
29:25
US 10-year bond yield, 425.
29:28
It broke through 420.
29:30
That's the new support level.
29:31
Had a look at it a couple of days ago, back at 425 now, going along slowly.
29:36
That's a slow burner.
29:37
That's another pick of the year for me, as I told you, Skalk.
29:41
Sell the US bonds by the yield.
29:43
S&P 500.
29:44
has been toying with 7,000.
29:47
I've got the futures above 7,000, of course, for March of this year.
29:51
7,020 up 0.2%.
29:54
Doesn't like it, especially ahead of the Fed.
29:56
South African 10-year bond yield.
29:58
Oh my goodness me, look at this, 8.13%.
30:02
An unsung hero, the bond market last year.
30:04
We're talking about gold and clever people also had a bond portfolio which saw
30:11
In April, the yield being 11.15%, now 8.15%,
30:16
300 basis points in less than a year.
30:19
Fantastic stuff.
30:20
Bitcoin, 89,284.
30:24
What have you got on the movers and shakers board, rather the movers and
30:30
downers on the JSC today, Skarnkov?
30:32
I imagine some gold miners are involved there.
30:33
Yeah, it's, I mean, on the downers, it's...
30:39
We've seen some of the telecoms today.
30:41
That was an interesting one, Vodacom, Telcom.
30:45
I've also seen Richemont in there, in the mix.
30:49
And naturally, the big loser today is Sapi, dropped by 8%.
30:55
On the upside, I mean, you called it.
30:58
Harmony, 9.5%.
31:01
Goldfields, 8.1%.
31:03
Anglo Gold, 6.4%.
31:06
Northern Platinum 6.2%.
31:08
Subanya Stillwater 5.7%.
31:11
Pan-African Gold 5.7%.
31:13
Do I need to continue?
31:14
It's all in the diggers.
31:17
All in the diggers.
31:18
Fantastic.
31:19
And what about the indices?
31:21
How's that resi doing?
31:22
Start with that if you would today.
31:24
Yeah, we need to start with that.
31:25
That's 40% of our all share now.
31:27
So we need to start with that.
31:29
The JSE resi today increased by 5%.
31:34
Goodness me, stop the world, I want to get off.
31:36
And it's not exactly off a low base either, is it?
31:38
Fantastic.
31:40
What a performance.
31:41
And here's the interesting part.
31:42
I'm going to say that JSC All Share ended the day
31:48
1.34% in the green at 125,069 points.
31:53
But both the industrials were down 60 basis points and the financials were down
31:59
70 basis points.
32:01
So all driven by the… But as I mentioned, the diggers,
32:03
all the commodity stocks actually kept the all share in the green for today.
32:07
Very good indeed.
32:09
Skalk, I've got to ask you one personal question.
32:12
When you get you're exhausted because your mind is going all over the place, your
32:17
clients are phoning.
32:19
You've got three phones going and you've got client, sorry, your colleagues coming
32:23
in and asking you this and that.
32:25
When you get home, do you have time to decompress?
32:27
Or will you, for example, be waiting for the Fed tonight and sitting there?
32:31
And your long-suffering wife and kids will be looking for your attention.
32:35
You'll say, I'm sorry, Jerome Powell.
32:38
He's my wife tonight.
32:42
Tell me, do you switch off?
32:44
Because it must be difficult to sleep when so much is going on in your favour as
32:48
well, I might add.
32:50
I'm in the privileged position, Lindsay.
32:52
You remember the JSE floor.
32:55
I met my wife on that floor.
32:59
So she's been in the industry.
33:01
She's in this industry and she knows my passion, luckily.
33:04
So she'll most probably be sitting next to me, you know, listening to Paul delivering
33:10
his speech.
33:12
What a couple of nerds.
33:12
Fantastic.
33:15
Skulk, thank you very much for your time as always.
33:17
Skulk Lowe is a portfolio manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town, and that was
33:22
the 5 o'clock shadow.
33:24
The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and
33:29
various contributors and do not reflect the policy,
33:31
position, or opinion of any other agency, organisation, employer,
33:34
or company associated with StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.
33:38
Assumptions made on the analyses are not reflective of the position of any other
33:45
entity other than the speaker or the author.
33:47
And since we are critically thinking human beings, these views are always subject to
33:51
change,
33:51
revision and rethinking at any time.
33:54
Please do not hold us to them in perpetuity.