You know, when you're a sailor and you get stuck in a particular weather system, and it's called the doldrums. I mean, there's obviously lots going on all the time. But at the moment, we've had the election, we've had interest rate decisions, we've had inflation data this week from the United States, we've had all the results out. And as I said, the thing that's really fascinating me, David, is the appointment of the Trump cabinet, which is quite outrageous in certain ways. What do you think?
It is outrageous. I know there's some, you know, People are celebrating certain people like Marco Rubio. On the other hand, what interests me is that this is a very pro-Israel cabinet or appointments. If you understand the people that are there in terms of what they represent, and it's Mark Huckabee, another appointment as ambassador to Israel. So... And it's, you know, from that point of view, it's very, very interesting.
I didn't think that he'd go to those levels or so, obviously, in that direction. Which does, I don't know what that means and how this is going to unfold. But he certainly makes his sentiment known. And we'll wait to, you know, wait to see the rest. Yeah, it's interesting with Huckabee because... The footage has emerged, of course. I mean, I don't know why these people say these things and then get surprised when six, seven years later they resurface.
He was talking to a couple of Jewish chaps and he said, there is no such thing as a Palestinian and the West Bank doesn't exist. Now, I don't know. I don't know. If you were Donald Trump, Viv, would you look at that and say, can't inflame attentions any more than they are by appointing this chap? I mean. I don't know. I know Trump is like nobody else in politics, but it just seems to me that he should have maybe withdrawn that ambassadorial role for Huckabee. Am I wrong?
Trump is the one that said he wants to turn Gaza into a fucking... Like, I mean, Trump is very anti-Palestine, very pro-Israel. I think if you're looking at it as a larger scale, what he's going to do is he's going to go pro-Israel and go anti-Ukraine. That is going to be his general kind of thing. and I think he's going to use the support for Israel, which is always, I think, a bit deeper than the support for Ukraine was, to basically use one to cover the other. That's my impression.
David, I think also, did you mention the UN ambassador? Oh, yeah, very, very much. She was the one that was highly critical of the colleges. Remember, she was the one they mocked all the time for her shrieky voice. But she was the one who challenged all the presidents from Harvard, who else, from Columbia and so on. Very not, I don't know whether to call her right wing, but certainly conservative. And to put her at the UN, you know what's going to happen, sure.
But also, this is actually the conventional text. the unconventional picks is the person for defense which is going to be excellent exit yeah gosh he's a major right in this international card look he did serve in in war uh right but he was not it's not like a a general which is that you go for uh he's the crocs news host then there's tulsi gabbard who's going to be in charge of uh national intelligence okay and uh she's gotten some very strong links to assad and putin i doubt like
people say that she's actually as a a asset because nowadays if you were an asset i mean how would you communicate they would bug your phones it's impossible to be like you know uh and not be caught like if you're watching you if they're not watching you yeah you can get away with but they're watching you you'll be caught so i doubt is that right she definitely has you know sympathies that are against uh you know uh um weird one we were talking about this before matt gates
So we understand that case. That case is a congressman from Florida who, let me say, has been credibly accused of paying for encounters with ladies that were under the age. OK, I think it was charged, but like some people have accused along with him have been charged and have gone to prison. And so this is something weird. Also, he immediately resigned from the Congress as soon as he was nominated by Donald Trump. And this also comes from Congress.
Immediately, there was an investigation inside Congress about his conduct. And that investigation ends because he's out of Congress. So make of that what you will. But the Gates one, I don't understand because, you know, there's some things that I think are too far for anybody to basically justify. The Gates one looks a bit weird to me. Yeah, this is where even the Republicans are up in arms about whether they have the guts to vote against the nomination because they can. It can be rejected.
I'm a shallow person compared to you two. When I see Matt Goetz, I think first thing I think is, goodness me, that's a creepy looking fella. His eyes are weird. He looks like some kind of vampire. But when you hear his story and you hear his rhetoric about what he's tried to do in the past and what he has never done, which is hold any sort of position of authority. He's got absolutely no experience whatsoever. All he's got is the fact that he's a lapdog for Donald Trump.
And it was very interesting because John Bolton, the ex-security advisor to Donald Trump, was being interviewed yesterday and his opening gambit was, in ancient times when the barbarian leader had to go to the Emperor of Japan, the Emperor of Japan would make him prostrate himself on the floor in front of him and bang his forehead three times on the floor. And John Bolton said, these people are not just yes-men. They are the barbarians at the foot of the emperor.
And Trump is the emperor, of course. And it's a little bit disturbing, I think. Sorry, I'll go on now because I'm on a bit of a roll. Peter Hegseth, I sent a tweet out, or rather an X, a message on X the other night. And I said, yeah, he's a brave chap. He's got two bronze stars. He's done two tours of duty, Iraq and Afghanistan. He's clever.
He's got a great education, etc. And the reason he's being put in is because he's, in speech marks, an American hero, because that's what Trump called him, an American hero. And then at the end, I said, Forrest Gump is also an American hero, because he did, I don't know if you're familiar with the film, but he was a war hero as well. It doesn't make him the defence secretary. So it's all very odd, David. No, I... It's coming through now.
I must admit I'm not as close to these characters as maybe Rivers but some of them, I mean, when you look at Matt Gaetz, he's got that eyebrow that kind of... What's his name? He's like the film star. One flew over the cuckoo's nest. Jack Nicholson, yeah. Jack Nicholson. And he's pretty young. I don't think he's over 40. You know, very, very strange appointment. This is for a very high position. Who else was the there was someone else that also Not his. I'm trying to think of the other one.
I've lost my train of thought at the moment as you were talking there. But Listen, what we're also interested in, who's going to be Secretary of the Treasury? I don't know if he's made any appointments there yet. Not yet, no. No. But, of course, we haven't mentioned… He's talking to people. We haven't mentioned Elon Musk yet, of course, and his partner. Gosh, what is his name? Rawaswami. Rawaswami. Rawaswami. Yeah, anyway, the rent.
The second fellow unleashed on the world, I think it was in 2022 or something about, we're going to get rid of the Department of Education, we're going to dismantle the FBI, etc. And it goes on and on. And of course, Elon Musk is loving this. And they've called it the Department of Government Efficiency, which is Doge. Obviously, we know what Doge is apart from... It's not a government department, by the way. It's just a consultancy that goes to the government. So it's strange.
Viv, you must have an idea on this Elon Musk story. You know, the point is that if you appointed him into a government position, then Elon Musk would have to resign all his directorships. Exactly. So he doesn't have to do that. You know, he can carry on as an advisor. or almost as a consultant. Exactly what David has said.
So the people are saying that this is not a department and therefore something newly created and therefore Trump is kind of letting these guys off with a fake prize effectively, not realizing that they can't get a real department because if either of these guys got a real department, Musk would have to get rid of his shares in Tesla and SpaceX etc. And even to remember, he's not as rich as Musk, but he's still a billionaire. and has a 7% stake in a company called Roivut.
And here is my thesis on this, right? I believe neither Ramaswamy or Musk care that much about the debt. They don't care about spending. Okay, because how does, if the US basically drops its deficit by 50%, how will it affect Musk's net worth? Not at all, right? But what really Musk is concerned about and Ramaswamy are regulations. Musk has an issue with SpaceX because they are stopping him from getting his rockets up as fast as possible, right?
There's an issue with Tesla because they are preventing him from getting, you know, that robot taxi on the road as quickly as he might want to. Also with, it's called Neuralink because, you know, obviously there's regulations about how easy it is to put stuff in people's brains. Or with the Boring Company about how easy it is to dig underground. You know what I mean? This is construction.
Now, if you're looking at all those companies here, you want to reduce regulation, SpaceX would be more profitable. Tesla would be more profitable. Neuralink, who knows what the future might hold for that company, but it will progress faster.
and the same thing with the boring company and on the other side robert its business model was entirely finding drugs that were basically developed by other people and they're taking them and buying them off them and then taking them through the the approval process at the fda so literally they were totally involved in regulations around drug drugs and the reason i say that i don't think that the two of them together there is a
bad thing from their point of view is that Musk doesn't concern himself with drugs. And I don't think Ramaswamy concerns himself with construction or with, you know, space or with driving, et cetera. And so they each have the ability to target parts of the regulatory environment that is going to benefit each of them specifically and also is going to make them much more wealthy. And here's another thing to be concerned about.
People are talking about the fact that Donald Trump's a lame duck president. That's not the case in reality. Not to say that I think he's going to have a third term. The people say it's a lame duck president because he doesn't have the ability to affect you after his term. And so people normally with a lame duck president, by halfway through his second term, they kind of stop looking at you. The difference this time around is that he has Musk on his side.
And Musk has said that if anybody votes against Trump's, like, you know, approved candidates, he will basically finance rivals against them in the next election. Now, this is Russia stuff. It really is. Russia stuff. Yeah. Russia stuff.
for another term i mean no consecutive terms because of that but also because it doesn't also it's going to be i've told you guys before it's not going to it's all like 30 percent chance it doesn't make it if you have to go get an actuarial like an insurance textbook and look at the matter of his age and his weight he's not going to be another four years guaranteed you know it's like two-thirds chance but he'll be all but a little bit But here's the thing, it doesn't need to be another thing.
Once you change the laws, it takes a long time to change the laws back. And SpaceX will have four years, maybe five or six years of, you know, ability to get rockets into space much more easily. And Musk says he can get rockets fast into space, they can do the paperwork. If you take out the paperwork, suddenly he's going to have much more ability to get this, you know, Starlink and stuff in space. Roy Wins would have a huge, like, you know, uptake.
There's probably tons of, like, you know, drugs that they're pushing for the FDA right now. You take out some of the regulation of that, they're going to be... Super profitable. So, yeah, these guys are going to make billions. With Musk, it's going to be $70 billion just on Tesla in the last week. Yes, it's unbelievable. Just before we leave the Musk story, do you think Musk approached Trump or do you think Trump approached Musk?
Because Musk must have said to himself, if he gets in, then he's quite easily manipulated because he loves people just saying how wonderful he is and I can get somewhere, I can get in.
and get the regulations that you've just spoken of viv quashed and etc who came first the chicken or the egg david do you think i think i'm sure that that musk has been making overtures in terms of uh you know social media which must have attracted trump um he's you know he's that kind of character but he's been a supporter for some time it's not though he's just come onto the scene overnight it's been It's been at a distance, but now that he's taking the stage, that was a big surprise.
You know, and to a point where he started to give away a million dollars and so on, you know, there he really upped the ante. No one believed that he would take it that far. And what his agenda was, I think Viv has spelled out quite eloquently now. I think it's more an agenda than to serve the American people. It's more his own agenda. I don't think he's the kind of people, he's the kind of person who wants to hold babies or do any kind of civil work or something like that.
I think he's completely self-interested. Vivian, you were about to say something when David gave his answer. Please go ahead. Again, my consultancy theory around Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel found PayPal with Elon Musk. Peter Thiel was the first guy to support Donald Trump in 2016. Peter Thiel is the guy that financed J.D. Vance's business and basically financed his entry to the Senate. I think Peter Thiel had a role to play in this, almost certainly.
Okay. You know what was very interesting yesterday?
I picked up Bill Ackman is a former Democrat who you know who switched sides and he tweeted something very interesting yesterday he said and he said that there's giddy excitement you know over trump's administration uh by businessmen you know even businessmen who had formally voted or didn't vote for trump and this was more a business tweet than than anything else and very excited about what's happening about obviously his economic policies but he made another comment he
said you know that Where confidence, where you're confident, where people are confident, it becomes self-fulfilling. And he expected business now to spend a lot more, invest a lot more, which is very productive, increases productivity and also increases wealth and the stock market. But the other point he said that with regulations being looked at, he said that's going to unleash a huge amount of M&A. So, this was it. Today, I think you can tweet. You're not confined to a few letters.
This was quite a long tweet, but very, very positive business-wise. And I think that's what we've been seeing in the markets. I know we're taking a bit of a breather now, but there does seem to be this spirit of enthusiasm and spirit of, okay, we've got Trump, but… Let's focus on the economy. That's where we are. It's an interesting one, especially with the bond market doing what it's doing. OK, it's not getting hammered.
But on the other hand, when Trump talks about, I'll get inflation down, I'll get energy prices down. In fact, if what you've been talking about goes ahead and if he cuts taxes and if he imposes tariffs, then inflation, of course, is going to go up, certainly in the short to medium term. And therefore, his inflation call has been the first of his lies. Because the. the cost to the average person going to Walmart will undoubtedly go up.
David, just quickly sticking with you, Melania Trump, did you look up that Russia story that I I did. And did you see it? I saw it, yes. I'll just tell Viv what happened. For our eyes, they blanked out a lot of stuff. Yes. But it's quite fascinating. And what's also fascinating is that, you know, you alerted me to this as well, that She refused Jill Biden's invitation to the White House. Donald Trump met with Biden yesterday, but she refused.
You know, she held back whether she was embarrassed, whatever it is. She doesn't feel that she can hold a conversation. I don't know. But there's something not right. You know, she makes very few appearances. And, you know, I don't think she supported the second term. And I'm sure you're not going to see too much of her. Only when she's absolutely forced to be there. Well, she said she won't live at the White House.
She's going to spend time between Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago because her son, Barron, is at college in New York. So she's made it very clear she's not going to go to the White House. And obviously the marriage is on the rocks and she's paid to make certain appearances. But Viv, what happened, or you may have seen it, is that when Trump was confirmed as president-elect, The Washington Post said that he'd phoned up Putin and said, you must de-escalate the war.
And the first thing that Putin said, you can imagine, put the phone down and said, OK, let's escalate the war. And so he sent 145 drones into Ukraine the next day, which was the biggest attack of the year so far. So that was the first finger to Trump. And then the next day, state media, both television and newspapers, which is, of course, controlled by the Putin regime. plastered themselves with pictures from a long time ago of Melania Trump posing as a soft porn model, essentially.
And they were all laughing about her, saying, here's the first lady getting ready for her next term. So it's Putin saying to Trump, Viv, I'm in charge. Don't mess with me. Don't you think? Yeah, I think he is. But I think that is silly on his part, if he is doing that.
Because quite frankly, the one thing you know about Trump is, if you look back, the reason he's president is because people made fun of him at a party with uh barack obama everybody says that yeah the reason ronald trump is president is because there was a one of those press uh things you know uh nights with barack obama and for something the correspondence yeah and they made fun of trump and apparently he fumed on it for all this time and he's basically gone after you know
the presidency because of that the reason that he's basically appointed the people supporting right now and says no to like you know uh Pompeo and to uh Nikki Haley was because he felt that they had like kind of slighted his honor and the people he's speaking right now in terms of you know who's going to be in charge uh is not so much about their expertise but for loyalty like you mentioned because he wants people that believe what he says this I think is one of the things that
Putin could actually do that will make Trump actually support Ukraine because of the fact that uh he has a very very certain skin and if you if you do do something like this here he will you know it's called uh retaliate so it doesn't make sense from that point of view it's why you'd want to do that it's it's uh it's it's it's a this is a this is a very silly part for putin putin is uh maybe not the world's baddest person but he's he should be smart enough not to to
see that this is an opportunity be flattered donald trump that's the that's the thing like musk is doing and then you know basically get what you wanted you know disassociate yourself afterwards But yeah, it kind of makes no sense as to why they would do this. It doesn't, because they are likely to get Ukraine, or the part of Ukraine they already have, they are likely to get an ending to sanctions.
And they are likely to basically get Ukraine not joining NATO if Trump basically, you know, is just left alone. What would they want? Yeah, true. Anyway. Yeah, it's fascinating, the whole thing. And it will go on and on. It's the one thing that still keeps me awake at night. Anyway, the other thing is Bitcoin got to in the low 90,000s yesterday. And I remember earlier in the year looking at it, and it was something like 16,000, 17,000. This year, that is.
Not two years ago or three, but this year, it's been as low as that and has rocketed. And I saw a graph which superimposed Bitcoin over the Nasdaq. Bitcoin's a tech stock, Viv, and I'll stay with you on this one. They are at... Absolutely identical. How do you explain that? I think it would have been a year ago. I think it was last year on that level. That's not of last year. I think this year the low has been about 40,000. Oh, okay. Time goes quickly at my age.
I did a seminar on this just before the election, and I had three picks if Trump wins. It was Palantir, Tesla, and Bitcoin. I bought two out of the three. I did not buy Bitcoin because I'm too old.
I don't like... the idea of cryptocurrencies i've never invested in them even though i did pick them but coin has been one of the things that's going to go up uh if uh trump did win uh look trump is going to come in he's going to be much more open to uh the uh the crypto space in fact uh if you look at the podcast he went to some of the big podcasts he went to were very crypto focused yeah uh and young men in the u.s
with a substantial portion of young men in the u.s that actually helped uh with the election uh in fact big thing is not uh bitcoin it's doge i know we use doge for the uh the the institution that uh muslims are running but doge is up 300 percent this year okay and it's up 150 percent uh from the election to that that's like a week and a half uh so that is the one that's really going up uh but crypto in general he's gonna promote it uh i personally don't
trust crypto i don't know what it does and if i stay away but uh yeah But it's definitely a troubling phenomenon. You know, Viv, you raise a point which I can't get my head around. He's still, regardless of whether he's a supporter or not, and whether people who, which is exactly right, there was a whole lot of young rich people in the Bitcoin area and those areas that supported him, and maybe this is his payback. But I'm trying to get my head around how... You're going to regulate this.
You know, I still can't irregulate a dollar. You regulate a currency. You regulate. I know that the whole point was to bypass and have a currency that is not dictated like gold by central bank policy or overspending or whatever. But still, you know, somewhere along the line, you've got to have control over this currency. Otherwise, exactly what it's used for will be. money laundering and all dodgy type of dealings. So I'm saying, okay, they're going to help.
They're going to be more forward-looking towards it. But how? How are you going to regulate it in terms of people using it for either investment or for settling transactions? I still can't in my own mind work out where the benefits are. We still price it in dollars.
hey yeah you know we still so it's still got a dollar value you know it's it's uh uh in the old days of barter you'd you'd you'd have a cow and you'd take it to the market and you'd come home with carrots and tomatoes do you know what i mean yeah so where did we how do we get from bitcoin at 90 000 to carrots and tomatoes and and cows do you know what i mean and then so they said no well let's say a cow will be worth a dollar and for a dollar you can work
you can go and buy carrots and tomatoes okay yeah but you're getting the wrong way around david i don't think donald trump's uh donald trump's entire second president term is about reducing the power of the u.s state it's about reducing regulations he wants to defy the irs he wants to put people in charge of uh the different departments who are going to reduce their power reduce their overreach as he felt because he thinks the cia he thinks the fbi thinks
all those institutions have overdone their power over the last couple years uh bitcoin is a crypto is actually a way to reduce uh regulatory oversight not not to say that he wants to bring this into regular oversight he wants to reduce it because the people that he kind of seems to believe that that the state has turned against the deep state as he calls it has turned against him so he wants to kind of reduce the power of the deep state and that means basically having a currency that can't be
regulated and can't be tracked. That means basically… I mean, the people who have gone to that are far-reaching. So I reckon these people who are getting carried away and buying just because they're buying, as you say, you avoid it. Somewhere along the line, I think, are in for a bit of a shock. But I heard this Mike Novogratz, Scott, or whatever his name is, saying, you know, this is $500,000, you know. And everybody's, oh, $500,000 is only 90 we better buy.
So it is being propped up by a lot of the cheerleaders for this, for crypto. Because you can't challenge it. You can't say, oh, there's earnings or anything around it. You can just put this up to wherever you want to. It's just a vehicle. It's just a speculative vehicle, isn't it? I mean, unless you're a criminal and you're laundering money, it's something that you buy because everyone else is buying it. And then you sell it. And you've never owned it. You've done it via.
And of course, the ETF market has boosted it a lot because now suddenly you can buy a small chunk in whatever increment you want. It's very, it disturbs me. And the reason it disturbs me is because I don't understand it like you, David. I really don't understand it and I don't want to. Next key point is going to be Trump has discussed having Bitcoin as part of the US's national reserves. So if that does happen.
okay then you could see i don't know you could see 500 000 you could see it go up from here and i was i still wouldn't buy it because i just like i've selected the school with david i think it can fall immediately uh you know because of whatever happens but i think that the next point is and the thing is that other countries have done this already uh because uh we've already seen other countries uh already go and have bitcoin as basically el salvador is the
big one that has done it uh and uh I think also, I think Nepal or somewhere else in Asia has done it. Bhutan, sorry, has done that. So we are seeing, you know, other countries already starting to look at Bitcoin as a reserve like gold. And I think if the U.S. gets into that as well, we could see 500,000. But like I said, this is not about getting a better functioning U.S. state. It's about getting the U.S. state significantly less powerful. And I think that's what Musk is about.
That's what Trump is about. That's what a lot of the things that he's doing is about. It's not regulating debt. It's regulating less. All right. David, let's get back briefly to the markets. And I noticed when I was looking at the JSC page today that Rechambeau was doing well. And I thought, why is that happening? And then I saw the Burberry numbers. I think the share price rose about 20% on the news of restructuring, I think it was. Is that what it is?
Was Burberry the catalyst for all luxury stocks? I made a statement. I made a very statement that they can see Chinese demand recovery. OK, I mean, this is Burberry. Now, no other company has reported anything close to that. You saw Richemont's results, which were earlier on the week, particularly on watch sales, really under a lot of pressure. So I'm still trying to work out why Burberry's results, you know, that statement, because this is a very low level. In fact, it's up 20% as I look now.
You know, for me, it was a very low level luxury brand. And why Burberry would... Leader recovery, it's just beyond me. So I don't know whether it just sparked some kind of view that maybe that side of the market is oversold. But I think it's a bit premature to call a turnaround in Chinese demand. I don't think Burberry is going to be the leader of that kind of turnaround.
Maybe it was just looking for an excuse, the whole sector, and also the Trump factor, and maybe China will start to stabilize at least. But Richemont was up, all of them came, 4.5%. So a lot of the luxury companies went up as well. I just, you know, in Europe as well, ASML came out with a report as well. You know, ASML has been under... of pressure. That's from your part of the woods.
And they came out with quite a positive view over the next five years about increasing demand for artificial intelligence. And of course, that's going to mean that they sell more machines and that shares up about over 6% today as well. So why bring that up as together with Burberry? I just think Europe has oversold Lindsay. I mean, I think it had been taken too much and... People looking or investors just looking for some kind of trigger to say, OK, let's go in.
But I don't think either in ASML they said anything particularly different from what they had been saying. I love the company. I enjoy it. And, you know, but certainly Burberry is a bit of a mystery. All right. Let's have a look at some markets, shall we, gentlemen? The dollar round 1823, British pound against the round 2316. Euro round is 1927. Euro dollar 105.70. on its way to parity, methinks. British pound 127.05. Gold price has had a bit of a time recently, 25.71 today, down $10.
Platinum and palladium both in three figures again, 9.46 for platinum, although it is up eight on the day, and palladium is unchanged at $930 an ounce. The oil price looked a bit dodgy earlier in the week, but it's recovered a bit. It was below 71. It's now 73. And three cents per barrel. Oh, no, it's suddenly gone 72.83, which is only up three quarters of a percent. That's the Brent crude variety. And West Texas is $68.93, which is also up three quarters. S&P is still holding on.
It's 6,009. Who would have thought that? 6,009 and has just dipped below 6,000, as my screen updates, 5,000,000. U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield, 4.42%. The South African 10-year, 9.34%. And let's have a look at Bitcoin. It was looking for all the world as though it would make an assault on 100,000 before the end of the year. And of course, it still can. But currently down 3.4% to 88,826. Actually down just over 4% now. What else have we got?
Viv, any of your South African stocks in your portfolios catching your eye, doing well, doing badly? Look at the gold price and look at the gold stocks today. They're all publicly that great.
look i'm i'm a bit concerned also about the rod i mean the rod that you said it's a 1820 it was 1830 something earlier in the day uh it's been incredibly vulnerable and the reason i'm looking at some currency in that yes part of it is the dollar but if you look at the movement against the powder you know it's about half the movement is just the rod it's not the dollar yeah or just the dollar and so what did i don't know if david said anything that's why is the rod being so weak
recently what's what's the kind of beauty about that It could be commodities. It could be commodity prices, which are under pressure, just the general state of the economy. I also think, you know, this whole emerging market story has been overdone. And the more I look at Europe, the more I look at emerging markets, the more I'm concerned about where things go, particularly with China still pretty weak. And I think that I know that there's views that.
rates in the U.S. might not come down as far as everybody had anticipated. I still think they're on a weakening bias. There's still calls that inflation is now getting very sticky and it's going to go sideways, whatever that is. I think it's more to do with money going into the U.S. I think investors taking a view on the U.S., whether they're buying Bitcoin or whatever they buy.
But I think there's this view, as Bill actually said, said that America is going to dominate, that it's going to be the place to invest. So I think you've got to build that in as well, as well as other factors that normally affect currencies. But the Rand has been incredibly weak. For us, we were at 1830, I think two weeks ago, we were kind of 17. And the people calling 1650. Big houses here calling 1650. Yeah. I was actually looking at the research I got from the different banks.
When the round was 18-30 and most of the stuff was talking about how much stronger the round was going to be. Last week they were talking about, you know, you're talking about below 17, breaking through 17, and it was 18-30. I'm thinking none of these guys predicted this stuff. You know what will happen, of course, if the Trump inflation play comes into fruition, then what will happen is, of course, that inflation goes up.
The US Federal Reserve stops cutting rates no matter who is in charge of the Fed. Maybe Powell will get kicked out by Trump. I don't know. But undoubtedly, rates will stop falling and may even start to tick up again if inflation rises. So the dollar rises as well. And therefore, emerging market currencies are in hiding to nothing, because not only does it mean... The dollar is strong and therefore the emerging market currency is weak.
But African governments, for example, it makes it much more difficult to service their debt with interest rates rising. So we could be in for a torrid time should inflation start to rise. What do you think? I would disagree with that. OK, good. Because I do believe if all the deregulation that Musk is going to put into play, that deregulation in the US is massively overregulated when it comes to construction, massively overregulated when it comes to manufacturing.
If Trump, if Musk goes in there and he significantly reduces the ability of the EPA and the ability of these federal agencies to stop construction in the U.S., it's still the world's largest economy. And they have a huge backlog of things that they need to do and need to build. And if you have, you know, he's not going to do it for the good of the country. You know, that's our thesis anyway. He's doing it more for SpaceX and Boeing and Tesla and so on.
The knockout effects for the whole economy in the U.S. could mean a construction manufacturing boom in the U.S. And that would. cause a huge uptick in demand for commodities, which would help Africa. It could easily replace China. And the second thing is this. The Chinese economy, they did that stimulus last week, which was $1.6 trillion, right? It was focused on the municipalities.
Now that they see Trump coming into play, they know they need to have higher stimulus to keep that economy afloat because of the fact that what's happening there. And what they're going to have to do is they're going to have to basically put that stimulus into parts of the economy that are going to be growing. That means more manufacturing, more cars or whatever they're going to be doing. And that also could be a huge source of commodity demand.
So I'm not so negative with the commodity space as some people are. I just think that what Musk is doing, what Trump is doing, could actually make commodities really attractive for the next few years as people start building because they have to. OK, well, it's good for the South African economy. But what I'm saying is generally emerging markets would suffer with a rising dollar and potentially stabilising or rising interest rates. Anyway, on the upside today...
The thing is, in America, they build with cardboard and sticky tape. You know, I know they build bridges and everything, but most of the houses are cardboard. Shapiro Construction Inc. with his analysis of the US infrastructure build. Okay, on the upside on the JSC today, Telcom up nearly 6%, Richemont up 3.4%, AB InBev up 3.3%. Downside, four of the five are diggers. Harmony down 5.4%. Anglo-Goldish Ante down nearly 4%. Northam's down 3.6%. And Sibania's still water 3.25% weaker.
Closing JSC indices, please, David, and value traded. Yeah, the value traded a little over $20 billion, which was up on the last couple of days. We ended flat, up 0.04% at 8.3%, 8.34%. So very little.
It was a toss-up between the minerals and... financials and industrials you know resources down again we've mentioned that you know gold shares were down you said harmony anglo gold sabania all of those sassle and that took the uh you know the the resource indices down but uh financials and um consumer stocks and sorry industrial is pretty steady and a lot had to do with those that you mentioned richmond up quite significantly on the back of burberry uh abn bev also up
you know the rand also plays its part, the much weaker and also played its part in supporting some of those big offshore companies on translation. But a fair day, nothing dramatic there. I think we're in a bad period now. I like nothing dramatic. Just final story and it's to do with China. It's the most interesting China story of the week. Have you seen the dumpling story, both of you? Anyone seen the dumpling story? Okay. Four students in a city in China.
decided to cycle to an historic city because they had a craving for these soup dumplings that this historic town was famous for. So the four of them rode off and decided to post it on social media platforms. This went viral. Within a week, there was 100,000 young cyclists cycling at night with their lamps on and everything, and mostly with hired bikes. And they went to this town, blocking traffic, etc. And And what does the Chinese government do? It says, no, this is bad.
This is a gathering of young people. And we know what has happened before with gatherings of young people in China, and they shut it all down immediately. They didn't say, oh, good, this is healthy. There's 19% youth unemployment in China. So it's giving them something to do and express themselves. And it's doing this town the power of good with all the extra money coming in. But no, they just said, sorry, no good. Viv, passing shot on that one from you.
Yeah, look, I mean, China is in a bit of a disarray at the moment. I don't know. This is much more dark and sorry to go dark as this. There was also a massive mass killing in China as well. 35 people dead in a car attack by the individual. Apparently, these things are rising dramatically. I don't know if you saw the report of the BBC about it, where they tried to stop the reporter from reporting. Yes, I saw that chap. Yes, he got hassled by that chap relentlessly.
Yeah. So the tensions in China, this is a situation where there is a society under huge pressure.
and i think the chinese government sees that and yes you might be like oh it's whatever but they know these kind of things can take off you know wherever like you know out of nowhere uh and so yeah i think this is actually a society at a huge pressure at the moment you know what what what really interested me about that story because when i saw the visuals i mean they were literally you know blocking the highway but the fact that this can go viral you know and when it goes viral that
it can attract That number of people, that was quite astonishing. And as you said, there was only four girls, I think, that decided to make this trip at night. It's quite a phenomenal story. It is a great story. Immediately they came down and clamped down and said, oh, you know, you can ride in threes and fours, but not like in multi-thousands. But I'm with you in this. I think there are a lot of outbreaks that are not reported. Definitely. A lot of protests and that that no one ever hears of.
happening around China because the press are not there and it's never reported. I think things are a lot worse than we're led to believe. And that's a problem where you have a dictatorship, but it would probably happen in Russia as well, where you never hear the true stories. Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much for your extended time today. Fascinating stuff, as always, on a variety of subjects. David Shapiro is from Sasson Securities. Viv Govender from Ransuisse.
both in Johannesburg, and that was the 5 o'clock shadow. The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and various contributors and do not reflect the policy, position, or opinion of any other agency, organisation, employer, or company associated with StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com. Assumptions made on the analyses are not reflective of the position of any other entity other than the speaker or the author.
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