You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams. The JSA has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock shadow. And as always on a Thursday, I speak to Viv Govender from RAND Swiss and David Shapiro from SAS for Insecurities, both in Johannesburg. It's results season at the moment, gentlemen, so you're gearing up for your particular portfolios. And there's a couple of stocks that I want to talk about. And I'll start with you, Viv, with two of them.
And David will talk about at least one of them. Actually, no, he'll talk about both. There's a company called ASML Viv came up with numbers yesterday. Market didn't like the sort of the after results chatter, if you like. I think the share price was down 8% in euros at one stage. And the other one is a company that I'd never heard of called TSMC in the United States, which came out with results today, which were good. Maybe you want to give us your thoughts on both of those.
It must have been TSMC. It's literally the most important company. It is effectively, I think, ASML and TSMC are the two irreplaceable companies and there's nothing in the world that does what they do. And people have tried. The Chinese government would give untold billions of dollars to be able to replicate TSMC or ASML. But yeah, it's interesting. TSMC's results, I think they're like a 60 plus percent improvement in earnings. The market liked it a bit better than the ASML results.
ASML, for some unknown reason, has lagged the market significantly. It is the foundational AI company, effectively, because it makes the chips, the machines that are used to make the chips, that everything else depends on. If NVIDIA is worth $4 trillion, NVIDIA can't make its chips unless ASML makes those machines. And nobody else in the world can make those machines. Like I said, I mean, this is the most complicated machine in the world.
This is what I thought, Viv, when I heard it, because David has always told me about this.
And I thought, so in other words, this is a proper... monopoly and if nobody after all this time has managed to crack it in other words make the same machines that ASML does then why on earth did they come out with this slightly bearish outlook yesterday but they're worried about basically no tariffs and so on with regards to what's been happening look at the share price is a little bit here from the lows but look it is a case of I I think the market, for some reason, has never priced ASML.
as if it is so foundational to the world economy. I mean, TSMC, the share price has been ballistic over the last several years. In India, the first multi, a $4 trillion company, basically. But for some reason, ASML, either because of pricing or whatever, never is able to get the same kind of valuations coming through.
But like I said, if you're looking at AI and I have an AI portfolio, It was one of the first companies I put into it, and it's been a total laggard since I bought it for the last two years. I mean, I'm just doing an AIS presentation today. I'm not going to brag in here. We've done 70-plus percent in the last, what do you call this, two years. Very good. It's actually a two-year anniversary. Well done. And we've done, I think, 19 percent this year alone.
And ASML, despite being one of the first things I bought, that and Tesla are both big, huge laggards in my portfolio. It's quite sad, actually. Okay. But you'll hold on to it, will you? I have to. I just think eventually they have to result in something. And like I said, they're so foundational and so monopolistic. It just does not make sense how they can't translate that into earnings. So maybe investors don't like the fact they're in Eindhoven rather than in Silicon Valley. You know what?
The Europeans are conservative. And it's even like Nova Nordisk. You know, when you talk to European companies, they're not over-exuberant. They haven't got the same marketing noose as American companies. You know, they're not razzmatazz. And I can understand the CEO of ASML saying, look, we don't know the outlook for 2026. Therefore, we're kind of dumbing down our results or reducing them slightly. There's nothing to worry about. They're still going to be up.
Sales are still going to be up, I don't know, 30% in 2020. Actually put a very strong reporter, 15% this year, 30%. They talk about their new machine and sales are up, order books up. So the market, I don't know how it reacts. So I was a bit surprised. For me, it was a buying opportunity. I just think this is one of these companies you accumulate. because with TSM which is now a top 10 US company.
I know it's not part of the S&P because it's in Taiwan, but it's still, from a valuation point of view, it's still in the top 10, and it's made its way up there. And it's, as Viv says, it's absolutely pivotal.
you know you can't ai will not work without uh asml and or tsm this is the foundry this is the manufacturer you know and they're expanding now around the world they're opening up new new uh factories all over the place but lindsay when you heard what viv said about his ai portfolio yes this is not the end of it you know what i mean this is not this is still going to dominate And one of the points I wanted to talk about tonight is that, you know,
I've been looking below and saying, okay, maybe extend. You know, maybe look at the banking results that are coming out. Look at PepsiCo. Maybe, you know, look at some of the pharmaceuticals. There's nothing there. There's nothing there that is appealing as, you know, the technology stocks and the appeal of them. technology stock. No, but not every stock can be a technology stock. Look at PepsiCo and it's healthier sodas were doing better. The share price rallies by 6.6 billion.
I know David, you're a little bit blah-blah about these original companies now. You're a bit snoopy now, David. I'm just saying that I think that tech will continue to dominate into next year and the year thereafter. And therefore, keep it focused, keep it narrow. You know what I mean? You don't have to extend into a whole lot of stocks into 100 different other companies as well. So I'm not convinced that we have to give up any of these businesses.
And if anything, still continue to accumulate and keep it very concentrated on where we've been. Nobody was suggesting that you should get rid of anything at any time. Nobody suggested you should diversify. I'm just saying that there are some people that can't do that. They couldn't bring themselves to just have tech just in case there was a 2000 situation or something. But it is, I mean, that phrase, it's different this time.
It is different this time when you've got monopolies like the two companies that we've spoken of. And I'm ignorant, so I didn't know TSMC was so important. even though I have heard the name. But ASML, I know about mainly through you, David Shapiro. And gosh, Viv, if it's underperformed, there's a reason for that. And I think it's got something to do with being in Europe rather than being in the United States of America. Could be. It does, actually. That's a good point, Lindsay. You know why?
And I think we've brought it up before. It's not an equity culture in Europe. It's a socialistic state or it's everything is you looked after. You get your free health. You get your free education. So people haven't got the desire, that risk appetite that Americans have. And no matter, even though European stocks are always lower, Americans don't like to cross the border. They don't. They don't. You know, they're quite happy to keep investing in the US. And I think you're dead right there.
that people don't really know about ASML. It's only, you know, it's only, I don't think it's ubiquitous. I don't think it's widespread. And it's, you know, for me, it's a reason. It's definitely a reason that European stocks tend to lag. So just we can live with it. We'll do okay. Okay. I'll stay with you on this one, David, because it's a Richemont. Richemont's numbers came up on the JSC.
yesterday morning people seem to like it i mean i didn't see where it closed but in the afternoon share price was up about one and a quarter percent looked okay not fantastic i mean there were differing performances if you look at continued strength it says here in jewelry maison up about 11 and that's a constant exchange rate so on the other hand sequential rate of decline at specialist watchmakers down by seven percent so bits and pieces and also geographically
there were differing performances, Dave. Yeah, it's a very good result. You know, I mean, considering the background or the circumstances, the share's down today, but I think it's down together with other luxury stocks. And I don't know what the reason is. They tend to all move together. But what's interesting about Richemont... is that when you said specialist watches, that's what we used to know Richemont by. And yet, that only accounts for about 15% of their revenue or sales.
It's no longer, it's now a jewelry company, and it's Cartier, and it's from Cleopatra. And the question I keep asking analysts is that, yes, there's reasons for watches, and I think a lot goes back to the graft in China, but I'm not going to go into that in great detail, but, and also there's competition now. People are wearing Apple watches and a lot of issues. Nevertheless, what is intriguing is the actual jewelry sales. And this is high level. And this comes again.
You're suddenly finding Richemont kind of progressing up the ladder in terms of luxury, you know, to kind of challenge the Hermes or the Ferrari, you know, where this. Only ultra-rich people. And we're not talking about rich. We're talking about those that we don't know, you know, that we will never come into contact with. Those people who have those yachts outside Cannes or wherever they are, you know, incredibly wealthy people.
And, you know, they go in there probably understated, although people say that you can tell Cartier, Jewelry, whatever it is. So it's a different level, Lindsay. And I think they're creeping up. You know, this was... I always used to say that Richemont was the ugly sister of the luxury brand, you know, because it was watches and it wasn't LVMH or Kering or any of these. But this is making a serious play, you know, and it's, again, it's jewellery. This is interesting.
I mean, you talk about diversification and the fact that you don't believe that you do have to diversify. What about a luxury goods company? It sits down and it says, right, there's a new CEO coming in. It says, right, 20% of our business is… is specialist watchmakers. The other, we've got 10% in bags. We've got 20% in women's clothing. And so it goes on. Do they have to shift it around? I mean, one year, one season and beyond, suddenly everybody's going for one particular thing.
It doesn't work like that, no? You know what I say, I must give Lindsay a vivid chance. But these are timeless fashion brands. You know what I mean? If you look at an Hermes bag, the original Birkin bag went for $10 million. You know, one of the prototypes. Yeah. A million dollars. Yeah, the one that she wore. 8.7 million pounds, I saw that, yeah. Yeah. But this is, you know, these companies are like the epitome of luxury. But you can't ignore the craftsmanship as well.
So it's not as though this is factory produced. They are craftsmen, whether it's a bag, an Hermes bag. What's the other one? The Kelly bag. They make two, the Birkin and Kelly, or whether it's a Ferrari, and even now Cartier jewelry. So the other thing is that they're very tight on production, very tight on inventory. You can't just go and buy them down the road. And that gives them a special place. I still like them and I would still buy them. I still buy those high-level luxury bands.
Because of this, it's almost bulletproof. And they're just very, very wealthy people that buy. So they've got the margins. They sell what they make. They're really good businesses. It doesn't matter how expensive the bag is. You ask a woman to find, and I'm not being sexist here, you ask a woman to find her phone or the car keys. It doesn't matter if it's a 10 million bag or a 50 rand bag. She still takes the same time to find it. Help. Yeah, Viv. That's it. I'm all over.
Viv, is there any relationship between the fortunes of the sector that you play your trade in and, for example, luxury brands? Or is it just a thing on its own? Is it to do with GDP wealth? What's it to do with, do you think? Why do people buy these brands, these big, expensive brands? Because it differentiates them from you and me. I was asking Viv. I need a French perspective here. Let's be clear about this, Lindsay. It's you and me from David, okay? Yes, exactly. Yeah, I know.
He's being nice, yeah. Yeah, he's being nice. He's being nice, okay. But here's the thing with luxury brands, right?
And this is the thing that we must understand as well is that the things we think of luxury brands, at least you and I think of luxury brands, like Rolexes and these kind of things, are at the bottom end of actual luxury there's there's there's names i saw those names of the actual luxury brands i don't know the names of them i don't recognize them i wouldn't see them you know but the rich rich would know what they are i mean mark zuckerberg's one million dollar watch he was wearing when
he was talking about uh something another a couple months ago i remember that yeah yeah and and those kind of things are like i like you know really out there but but the problem with luxury as david said it is fashion and there are things that are timeless but I always think back to the fur coat. Forever, the fur coat was a timeless fashion item and it disappeared out of nowhere.
The fear I have among luxury brands is that, this is, of course, a broader thing, but have you noticed that there's been a big rise in socialism among the popularity recently? There's a guy called Zamdani running for mayor of New York. Yeah, and he's a proper socialist, that one. A proper socialist. He's from South Africa, actually, you know that? No. He did his school in Cape Town, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah. South Africans are just running the U.S. I don't know why it's so big there.
You know what I mean? Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, this guy. We have a disability, but we're running the U.S. But, yeah, so I think there is a thing happening in the world right now where there is going to be significant economic disruption from, again, from AI, and I have to bring it back to my particular thing. I think you are going to be seeing, you know, a great deal of inequality rising.
Whether that's going to result in the rich, the mega rich buying stuff or the mega rich hiding their wealth, you know, to kind of like, you know, blend in or whatever. I don't know.
But I do think that if you're looking at a world, say, four or five years time where unemployment is double digits across the world, and not because people are poor, or not because the world economy is shrinking, it's because, you know, the AI is replacing people in certain sectors because we are starting to see, you know, this massive inequality rising because that's what AI is likely to do. I don't know what.
the the result is are we going to go to a great depression kind of thing like after then the great depression we had high unemployment people were wearing more dowdy clothes in the 1920s you know what i mean and would that reflect through here or will we see just the the rich being okay we are rich let's spend our money so yeah never mind what the rich are gonna do never mind what the rich are gonna do it's what the poor are gonna do and people rising up
uh and also with with um with climate change people having to go from one country to another because particular places uninhabitable i mean like delhi for example uh viv i mean if it gets if it constantly goes to 50 degrees people are going to say eventually no actually this is this is too much we cannot we we cannot live here so i think it's a bit of um a few social trends that investors should be looking at i.e weather and uh and also yeah very high
unemployment as you mentioned that's my thought but here's the thing like i mean people always say you know you need the like a bit of a broad, you know, wealth to make luxury goods go and so on. I would say that that's not human nature. Human nature over the last 300 years, because of things like democracy and more of equality things like unionization and so on, had that. But if you go back in the past, you can find a place like India.
At one point in time, the Mughal emperor took 20% of the GDP of India for himself. Did he basically find things, or did he waste his money? No, he built the Taj Mahal. You know what I mean? When you have that kind of insane wealth, These guys will find things to do. Look at Jeff Bezos and his quarter of a billion dollar wedding. Look at Elon Musk basically going to Mars. You know, some of them do some good things.
I mean, you know, Bill Gates is trying to, you know, cure diseases with 200 billion. But that's what happens. You do find ways to spend even hundreds of billions of dollars. So I don't know if that's going to be the limitation, but it could really be the social stigma of the fact that, you know, you ask, you know, so or so stations of your wealth when. It's going to be double-digit plus unemployment in many of these first-world countries.
I think you're concentrating again, I'm saying you're concentrating too much on what the rich will do. They'll find something, not the poor will do, which is the most important thing for the world and for investors as well. David's kept very quiet on this one. Yeah, because despite what you say, you can't get a Birkin back. And you could try. Yes, we're not disputing that the wealthy will say, OK, I want one of those.
I want that dinosaur skeleton because it's the only one left and I'll buy it and I'll build a house in my garden for it. I don't care about the rich people. I mean, I'm not saying I don't care about them. You can give your speech outside the Ernie's shops, wherever they are. I know in Bond Street, I don't know where it is in New York, but I'll give you the LVMH or Tiffany's and you can give your talk. In fact, it's right next door to Trump's Tower. So you think I'm anti-luxury goods?
If you want to buy me something from Asprey or something like that in Bond Street, David, that's very nice. I would like it and I will covet its fantastic craftsmanship. I agree. If you've got money, then spend it. I'm just talking about the trend that Viv introduced. I'm just saying there are rich people out there that we have no idea how much they're worth and what they will spend it on, and that's the market there.
These people, you know, that these groups that I mentioned play to, you know, why would a man want five Ferraris or six Ferraris? Why? I mean, seriously, I can't understand. But there are those people and this is the market and these luxury brands, these high level luxury brands understand the market and they control supply.
Therefore... you know uh what's what's the word controlling their business controlling their profits so it's a it's a very special area and you mustn't confuse that with the lululemons and the michael kors and the kelvin clients and uh ralph lawrence those are not luxury no no they're high they're high-end um consumer goods um as you're quite rightly safe i mean if if you look at the history of cartier if you look at the history of van cleef Van Cleef-Alpel, etc.
And Berber, you go down the list, you do the history and you find out when they were formed and how they were formed and the craftsmen that started it. It's the most extraordinary thing. Fabergé obviously went all over the place, but if you look at how Fabergé started, it's a fascinating story and you will never, ever recreate a Cartier, David. I don't believe you can do, even if you start now. Because it won't be the same.
Even those specialist watches, you know, you're not getting the craftsmanship. You know, it's handed over to a very few people that actually develop the ability to make those very special watches. So, listen, I don't wear a watch. I drive a Peugeot 208, which I've only done about 4,000 Ks in two years. So, but… But I recognize these brands. I recognize the appeal of these businesses. Sure. Then, Viv, I'll ask both of you these questions before we get to the markets.
You're going to treat yourself, David. What's your idea of luxury? He's just going to buy something for you, not for Linda, your wife, not for the kids or anything, just for you. Yeah. In fact, I was looking at I get a lot of invitations from galleries, and I saw some woodcuts. from an African artist now that's on exhibition, but I saw the price and said, no, not really going to go for that one. But that's where I focus my attention. But then again, I'm quite careful about how much I lay out.
Yes, okay, all right. Buying in pounds, you've got to divide everything or times everything by 24. So it makes it, okay.
scrap that one take it off the list all right i didn't get a very good answer from you but you've got a luxury good or service to buy for yourself to treat yourself because you've had a tough time or something or you've had a good time whichever what would it be look uh the last thing i bought that was really expensive for myself and was like just a bit of luxury without any kind of usage was a those oculus rift glasses you know those glasses yes and they were about 20 000 or So.
But I mean, that is about as high as I go. And that's like a once a year purchase, if that. I'm not into cars, I'm not into clothes, I'm not into jewellery. I don't have any of that stuff quite, right? Good for you. My wife is more... The luxury stuff I have is the stuff my wife wants, basically. That's the luxury stuff I get. Okay, understood. A kitchen remake is probably the most luxurious thing I will be doing. That's not a bad thing to do as well, I have to tell you.
It enhances the value of your house enormously. Right, OK, Chair. Let's have a look at the spot prices. OK, I've got the dollar round at 1785. We've got the South African Reserve Bank's MPC meeting at the end of this month, and surely they'll cut by a quarter of a percent market, watching that, of course, but also it's already factored in. British pound, you were talking about that, David. Yeah, you're spot on. It's 24, you've got to multiply a pound by. 2395, to be precise.
Euro-Rand is 2068. And Euro-Dollar, 115.87, which is a euro which has fallen by 0.4% against the dollar. That's interesting. That's quite a move for the dollar. British Pound, 134.10, which has barely changed. Now, the gold price has been hit by the stronger dollar. It's down $31 to $33.33 per ounce, 0.9% weaker. And Platinum, that's up... This is me. It's up again. This is a big move. Another 5% today. 1464, up $71 an ounce.
It wasn't long ago when I was saying, when is platinum going to become a four-figure commodity again? It's been stuck in the 900s for so long. And look at it now. It's rallied by, what, 40, 50% in the last three months or so, I think. Yeah, it's a really, really big move. Hopefully, South Africa can dig enough PGMs out of the ground to make it good for the fiscus. But we'll see about that.
Let's have a look at some other commodities as well, notably the oil complex, which has been above $70, down to $67 yesterday and back at $69 today. $68.96, up two-thirds for Brent crude, and $67.14 for West Texas variety, up 1.1%. Natural gas unchanged at $3.55. Copper. 5.51, up a third of a percent. Did I tell you my copper story? No, I didn't tell you my copper story.
A friend of mine was travelling from the south of the Netherlands to Amsterdam on Monday, and they stopped the train at a place called Rosendaal, and she had to get off and get a bus.
The reason is... copper theft on the line copper a great south afghan export in the netherlands someone has stolen the copper and it's apparently becoming more and more common and of course it's because of the copper price at uh what is it uh 5.46 per pound in new york and it was a it was trump that really uh got the thing going and got those copper thieves out there it's extraordinary well they must have learned from the south are you sure we didn't export some chips that's
what i'm saying it's it's it's either idea export or it's a physical it's saying come on let's show us how it's done s p these s p 500 features are up a third of a percent the these These are September futures, 6,324. The US 10-year Treasury yield is 4.44%. That's after CPI and retail sales and some earnings. The South African 10-year, what is that doing? It's looking as though it's going to go into double figures again. It's 9.96 at the moment.
So the recent good form suddenly coming under threat again. And Bitcoin, what should we do with this? Oh, goodness me. Last time we spoke, David, it was $122,000 a coin. Ah, it's a bear market. Now, 118,000 is...
600 which is down 0.4 percent vid bitcoin please tell us yeah i don't know if you saw the new genius act coming into play um i noticed something about the speaker walking along and the genius act being voted on or something tell us about that yeah this is a move here uh so the uh guy running crypto and ai is a guy called david sachs he's on the old class so you know pretty much what he's i these ideas are these guys are extremely and i mean extremely into uh bitcoin and so uh and other
cryptocurrencies as well i mean it's one of the topics they talk about as almost as much as ai uh so this genius act comes to play and what it's aiming to do is it's doing what it's working what's called stable coins the stable coin is basically something where you have a cryptocurrency backed you know fully by a hard currency usually the us dollar so there's a The biggest one out there is a company called Tether.
uh and effectively every tether coin should be backed by one u.s dollar in tether's bank count you know what i mean now the you may think what is the use of this i mean look at the market capitalization of a visa or a mastercard you know these are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of companies and what are they doing they're basically doing uh transactions with currencies uh you know they're moving money around if you could move you know obviously the
technology for moving crypto is easier than the technology for moving like money according to the ways being price share. You could technically convert your currency to a tether. Move somewhere else, pay somebody that tether, they convert it back into the local currency or whatever currency they want to use it as. And that is probably a cheaper way to do things, an easy way to do things than using MasterCard or Visa or the big banking systems.
And like I said, this is a trillion dollar business at the moment for these two companies.
And the US government, by basically legitimizing these stable coins, is going to possibly cause a huge shift in the way financial markets work uh and like i said this guy david sacks is really into this so he kind of knows what he's what he's doing so i do think this is this is a significant change in how financial markets could work going forward and the weird thing about this these coins is the way they make their money is that when you put a a bit of money with tether by
tether that body they take it they basically are interested okay and so they that is their business model they are making money on the interest they have while they're holding your body when you do transfers and whatnot I think, you know, That means that the actual transfer itself, if you do a transfer from South Africa, for instance, to the UK or something, you're often paying in excess of 1% in some cases, depending on what the spread is and the different fees and so on for your money.
And so many people might be looking at something like a system like this as being a cheaper way to do their money transfers. Also, if you're moving large amounts of money, there's often issues you might have with the banking system. So, yeah, this is a very significant move. It's more to do with the nuts and bolts behind the financial system, but it could really... like I said, a trillion-dollar industry. Isn't that interesting?
A very, very new technology using a very, very old way to make money. In other words, you've got the money in your account, we'll earn interest from it overnight or something. Very interesting. David? Yeah. You were saying? No, I was saying it's backed by the dollar. Yes. So it's a transmission mechanism. But, you know, you're going look, I can't question it. I don't.
know because i don't know you know if this is not bitcoin if it's if it is just a token yeah then there is promise you know where how this differs from what bitcoin is i'm not quite sure you know stable coin versus uh bitcoin because i think the whole purpose was not to have it linked to any currency you know to to be something that's uh because if it's linked to a dollar it's still going to be like um you know it it's still going to be subject to controls by uh the
dollar issuers uh central banks and so on but anyway let's see i'm not i'm i'm When I say agnostic on this, I'm just learning.
you know always concerned about um security type issues around us but i must say one thing is that everybody who owns a bitcoin just feels it's their obligation to tell you to tell me every time it trades up you know yeah there's there's a lot of very smug people around at the moment david chapira but you just turn the other cheek and say well done i'm really pleased for you through your teeth that is of course gentlemen on the jc today i've got coronation
coronation managers up over five percent now they're i think it's under management announcement was very very brief we have got this amount of money under management now yesterday something like that nothing else and that was around that was around mid-afternoon and the share price did nothing and today Okay. 5% higher. Maybe people are having a look at exactly where that money has come from, where it is going. Northam's up 4%. A company called We Buy Cars up 2.8%. Blue Label Telecoms up 1.8%.
And MTM up one and three quarters nearly. Downside, Valterra, the platinum producers. That's strange. Down three and two thirds percent. What else have we got? Richemont down 3.4% after good results yesterday. Well, there were.
analyzed as good results more or less across the board but suddenly come down today but david says it's because the whole sector is down and i'll take that and premier down 2.8 percent anyone got anything else outside of that before david gives us the indices no david indices please we closed up right across the board the orchard index up in 0.3 percent at 97353 No dramatic moves, but the resource index up about a half a percent, banks up about a half a percent,
and the industrial index up about a quarter percent. So, you know, broadly along those lines. The property index has been gaining. Every day it seems to be ticking up. I think investors are looking for value there. I think we might have seen the bottoming of that sector after really hard time. That was up another third of a percent today. Value traded round about the 22 level. Still a lot of interest in platinum shares, a lot of interest in gold shares here as well.
But NASDAQ's buying back their shares always dominates the high value trades. Okay. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. We'll come back next week at the same time with lots more results, I'm sure, and lots of moves on companies that I should know the name of. but don't at the moment. So I'll do some boning up on that one. David Shapiro is from Sessom Securities. Viv Govender from Ransfis, both from Johannesburg. And that was the five o'clock shadow.
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