You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams. The JSU has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock shadow. And as always, on a Wednesday, I speak to Skulk Lowe, Portfolio Manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak. Skulk, I sent you a message the other day, just out of the blue, because I was just feeling like annoying you. And I said, I've got a bad feeling. You said, I second that thought.
Tell me why you second my thought, and I'll tell you what my thought was. Well, it's progressing. I mean, it's something you and I discussed many, many, many times on this show. But it's as if things are just, I don't want to say spiraling out of control, because most probably not at that point yet. But I mean, I watched some of these scenes in Tel Aviv last night. Yes. And, and, And it looks like it's AI generated. It looks like it's some blockbuster movie that I'm watching.
And it's playing out on my live screen. It is crazy. So what we have, we know that Russia and Ukraine, they're still very much at it. We know that we had sort of troubling Middle East with the whole… Israel and Gaza and Palestine and now Iran is very much involved and US are literally moving all or not all you know very very strong military presence you know towards Iran and and it's to a lot of commentators it's not when it's if it's just when they're gonna to get involved now.
And then you've got Modi or you have India stating this morning, well, they're not too happy with their neighbours either, Pakistan. Oh, is that staring up again? Yeah, so it's just, as we sit here, things are sort of just progressing towards something which very much sounds like a third world war. I don't want to call it, I want to say that they can still evade this, but it seems like We just... It's spiraling into a full-blown massive, massive war.
And you don't have two particularly stable characters with the latest and most sinister of the conflicts or potential conflicts. That's Donald Trump and Ayatollah Khamenei, who desperately wants to keep control of his country. And I think that if he stepped down, there would be a mass fallout. I think the majority of the population would rejoice in the streets. There would be pockets of resistance, obviously. So there's a lot at stake here.
And when Mr. Trump changes his mind all the time, he goes to the G7 meeting and says, I think Russia should be in the G7 or should never have been thrown out. And then he goes back after a day. He famously doesn't like going to these meetings. And I think he doesn't like it because he is not liked by the people at the G7 table. And also, they're cleverer than him. And I don't think he really understands what's going on there. So he says, I've got this big thing to get back to.
And that big thing being Israel and Iran. And I don't know, he's unstable. And Khamenei, as I said, is fighting for his life. And you put the two together. Not good, Skel. Not good at all.
No, I mean, to top it all up, I mean, you... got the president of the let's call it the most influential uh country aka the usa i mean you've got the president of the country tweeting i mean he's tweeting that they know exactly uh where where where he is i mean yeah yeah exactly and they can take him out any second um but they won't do it now You know, they want to, you know, it's what they call unconditional, what do they call it, withdrawal.
But, I mean, bottom line is he's tweeting about assassinating the leader of a country on social media. It's extraordinary, actually. It's quite right what you say. He sits there tweeting the most. astonishing things that would come out it's like it's it's it's it's like a mental a person in a mental asylum who's been given a phone and he comes out with all these things because his mind is racing and whatever pops in pops out again I'm going to read this. Go on.
I'm going to read this because this is the tweet that he tweeted yesterday. We know exactly where the so-called supreme leader is hiding in inverted commas. He is an easy target, but he's safe there. We're not going to take him out, in brackets, kill. At least not for now. But we don't want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention in this matter, exclamation mark.
And then in the next tweet, just literally after that, he says, unconditional surrender. I mean, how the hell? What era are we living in where the most influential person on the foot of earth is actually sitting in a position where he can actually tweet without assassinating a menace? That tells us we are in an extremely dangerous.
environment where you've got somebody like you just said that today he will you know get up on the right side of the bed and he's happy and everything is fine we're going to include these people and we're going to talk with these people those people won't see a huge amount of tariffs and we won't kill those people and the next day it is we know exactly where you are we're going to kill you we're going to hit you with tariffs and it's going to be beautiful um no i don't know I don't know.
I do know. I think someone might say to him that we shouldn't really do this, but they are sending those bombers that can penetrate the underground bunkers where most of the nuclear work is being done in Iran. That's what people say anyway. You have to believe them, I suppose, whether they'll go that far, Skalk. But if he presses the button, that's it. It'll happen. Yeah. No turning back. I mean, there's no turning back from there. Yeah, anyway, I mean, yeah, I think.
I think everything is telling us that. But I don't think this will end soon. I think that's the bottom line. I think, you know, I wish we can have a more stable environment. But I think beyond that, we are way beyond that. We are in a very difficult environment because now to fix things, you need more countries, more people to sit around a table. And I don't think they're going to be able to do that anymore. Okay, you read something. I'm going to read something.
President, this was from today, by the way. President Donald Trump slammed Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, hours before the central bank's interest rate decision, calling him a stupid person. We have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed, Trump said. He probably won't cut today. Europe had 10 cuts and we had none. I guess he's a political guy. I don't know. He's a political guy who's not a smart person, but he's costing the country a fortune.
This is the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the world's biggest bank, and One that he recommended, actually appointed, in his last stewardship of the White House. And now he's saying he's a stupid person. You can't say a man, you can't, as president, say that one of your most respected employees, colleagues, whatever he is, you can't say he's stupid. He's a stupid person, he says. He wants cuts because the Trump organisation is in such debt and so levered. But, yeah. Astonishing stuff, Skalk.
And as you say, we live in strange times. And what is very strange is that you're going to be on the tip of Africa, the most safe place in this most safe place to be. Yeah. Funnily enough, tomorrow, tomorrow, even in the summer round, I will be very, very close to Agalas, which will, funnily enough, be the most southern tip of Africa. So I don't think I'll get any safer than that for the weekend. Very good, you're always out and about but that's for another time What else is happening?
We're waiting for the Fed tonight of course I don't think that with the oil price doing what it's doing they can possibly cut No, no, no, no, Jerome Powell won't cut even though he's a stupid person Very stupid I mean, I'm still astonished I'm astonished that this is this is your governor this is the chief in charge and you're calling him a stupid person I mean And that when usually as a leader of a country or company, you want to create confidence, business confidence in your country or your
company. And by doing stuff like that, I mean it's just creating absolutely no confidence. But anyway, that's I think for today, yeah, I think it's just the right decision. It's a foregone conclusion that it won't be.
you know touching those rates if we look at the the economists you know none of them really expecting any any any movement today um but markets are looking a little tad better today but we'll we'll chat about that today um On a local front, there's been a few companies that reported, smallish country companies, so not a lot of big movements. But, I mean, companies that you've, you know, I've been discussing many times over the past six months have been under massive, massive pressure.
Suddenly, they're the stars. I mean, your likes of your... pgm counters remember how we discussed how bad these pgm counters have been doing um and now we're sitting here with the likes of impala platinum and this to yesterday's uh close um impala platinum 2025 up 65 northern platinum percent 72 percent here we go sabania's still i mean not for the best obviously scalp we have to make we have to make this this point just like retail sales numbers.
from South Africa today up 5.1%, but as the analyst pointed out, off a low base. But nonetheless, 5.1% for retail sales, which has been in the doldrums, and back to your point on PGMs, which we've been banging on about for a while now, and I don't know how many people have noticed it. I'm going off on a tangent here, as I always do. I can't find anyone to talk to me about PGMs. It's almost as though there's a bloke that you forgot about that lives down at the end of the corridor in the office.
and you knock on his door and he's sitting there and he's covered in dust and you say oh by the way have you seen platinum and he has a look there's nobody i can speak to it's infuriating you might help i mean you might help me in that regard but anyway go on i i do believe in platinum i i do believe in palladium and the pgms in general and we've had the discussion the world platinum council for three years in a row well it's now the third year in a row where where they
basically telling us that that uh the the demand outstrip the supply by a country mile i mean 500 odd um 500 odd million um shortages in in in 2023 in 955 in um 966 in 2024 and and this year they're forecasting an hour and a 50 million so i mean it's it's it's it's crazy if you look at the shortages in terms of um platinum itself and and i know that is announced by the world platinum council so so naturally they would would be more uh focused on on getting but you know i had that
conversation on the on the on the jewelry side i'm not going to have that conversation again but jewelry increased 55 over the quarter alone just because i mean it's just much cheaper to do things in platinum play and it's just as beautiful And so you see the demand picking up on that side. So, yes, I think, and if you draw that long-term graph on platinum, this is an interesting graph. We've seen a breakout for the first time in many, many, many years, more than 10 years.
We've seen a solid, solid breakout. And I'm talking about a technical breakout. If this thing continues… this could be extremely good for our platinum counters. But you're right. I mean, Impala did. I mean, I'm using Impala as a proxy now. It's been under massive, massive pressure. I mean, but we're back to 2023 levels.
Was it you I was talking to and asked you, with tears in my eyes, if you could find a graph to show the... movement of both platinum stocks and the platinum price how long do the bull markets last for how long do the bear markets last for is it a sort of a great big momentum thing and it goes on for three four five years or is it just a spike and then it comes it comes back again because it's terribly important and as i said and i think it was to you the currency markets
currencies run and run and run or dive and dive and dive for ages i just wondered if platinum has because if it's formed to base. at the lower levels and is breaking out from that base and those doldrums, then we're in for some fun in South Africa, and the Treasury must be rubbing its hands with glee. Yes, that is one.
I mean, we're going to touch on early 2020s again, but I mean, to your point, we add that, and I'm not going to give the history lesson again, which I go for, and I encourage the listeners, if they want to hear the story, go and listen to last week's Five O'Clock Shadow, which was the 11th. of June. But there we actually discussed that period where the platinum just literally doubled up, tripled up in some extent. It was a massive movement in PGM prices.
Over that same period we had, and I'm talking about, let's call it mid-2005.
um impala platinum was trading around about the 63 64 round levels yeah and by let's call it um 2008 so that's that's a four-year period also again i'm talking about mid-2008 a full four four years later um the share price was was trading well well over uh three thousand uh 540 rounds so i mean so that's a that was a that was a crazy bull market and a crazy bull market that lasted for four years so don't don't think that this is so so now we're talking about let's call it that uh
period 2018 um up to just call it post-covered where we've also seen a a movement back to to some of these pgm prices uh impala platinum went from 18 rand levels to again you know well over uh 3 000 round um so it's it's we've seen three thousand and you listen to what I'm saying. $300,000. $300,000. Yeah. $300,000. And again, that was a four-year period. Yeah, we've seen the prices drop back from those levels again well to, let's call it, 50, 60-rand levels again.
But I do believe that the PGM counters are looking quite attractive, purely because we still need these PGMs for… several industrial uses mainly the combustion engine we still use it for for jewelry purposes um and and we are the biggest producer i mean second second in platinum largest in in is russia and and as as as i last heard russia still very much sanctioned in in you know in war with with ukraine so if you need any of the pgms i'm talking about platinum palladium or rhodium
uh i mean south africa south africa um is the place to be but if you take that period 2000 the school of that 2021 2022 where we've had that massive run in in both the the let's call pgm counters and gold go and look at our current account over that same period how we went for this is the point i'm making people saying i really love platinum etc and the reason that i do is because during times when one of our major exports, when one of South Africa's major exports is doing well,
then the money just rolls in skulk and they've had a lean time. So they are expecting it and I hope they get it because that would be an enormous boost for the country, the people of the country, and also the South African Rand. It could go back to 15.5, 16.
yeah we we we're still running um deficits for now when i look at the current account naturally not major major deficits uh i mean like like a u.s deficit but we we still got kind of smallish deficits but that period where i just mentioned that the pgm that uh that's called 2020 to 2022 first quarter 2022 that was the the heydays the the big runs in gold and pgm prices that period we run massive, massive surpluses every single quarter. I mean, and don't be surprised if we see a repeat of that.
And like I told the client this morning, because he said, oh, I mean, all the companies are so focused on cutting costs. I mean, how are we going to grow? I said, well, yes, that's the main problem. If you've got companies that keep on cutting, they're getting literally lean and mean. But now... Suddenly, you've got the BGM that runs 25%, 30%. A lot of these people need to employ people to come and help at the mines.
They're starting to do expansions, things that they've laid off, improvements, and those kind of things. This is where the likes of the Udacos again come in, where they come and service some of these diesel engine pods. Those guys go and shop at ShopRite and pick and pay and suddenly your economy goes from only a 1% grower to a 3% to 5% grower where we should be growing. Your unemployment rate suddenly goes from 31% or 33% down to the 20% levels. And don't say it will never, ever happen.
Well, it did. 2004, which I just mentioned, where we were also in the Donald Trumps. We suddenly had this massive spike in the commodity cycle or the specific commodities that South Africa love and produce. We had that spike and unemployment went from also a 31% early 2000s to 21% in 2009. I know there was extra circumstances that also happened there, but never say never, never, ever say never. There's a massive, massive base that was started.
to build in around about the beginning of 2016 in the platinum price. It's gone. I mean, it's a big base and it's got big spikes and big troughs in it. But it went from around about $880 an ounce, platinum that is, and had a spike around about the COVID time, got up to $1,200 plus, just over $1,200. But essentially, if you draw a line through this, I'm looking at a graph from an organisation called Bullion Vault and also Kitco on the other screen, it's a big base.
And during basing, what basing tells you is that there's no demand and then suddenly supply starts to constrict because there's no demand. So they say, we're going to mothball this particular shaft, which South African mines did last year. They did exactly that.
and laid off lots of people sadly in that area of course socio-economically suffered greatly but don't you don't get don't be too depressed chaps because the good times are coming back by the looks of it and it's breaking out as you rightly said of that um of that base and it can go to 2200 2300 something like that i think if it if it really wants to run it is a bit spiky but It's not one of those lovely continuation.
charts that you see and you can just you can get in it's all nice and orderly you have to be on your toes but um the base that i'm seeing is the base for a big big rally skulk yeah yeah yeah no no this is um and it's it one can say well it'll never happen well it did happen it it did did happen i mean when we look at back in the high days i mean as i mentioned up to 2008 I mean, the platinum price ran to $2,200 per ounce, as you just mentioned. I mean, history will why do I say this?
History don't repeat itself. It often rhymes. Don't be surprised if this we had a massive breakout. And, I mean, it's always nice. I mean, you've been on the other side as well. I took many, many years ago.
You've been on on the buyer side but you also you've dealt with a lot of these hedge fund traders and and structured structures and those kind of things you know the the derivative market is a big market when you've got a period you know which we've seen in 2023 2024 and even even up to earlier this year where you still keep on seeing the pgm prices being under pressure yet when you read all the reports It's showing these massive shortages, massive demand, but not enough supply.
What's happening? Well, clearly somebody out there or a few people out there are saying, ah, this is the best trade. Platinum and palladium are going to go to zero eventually because there's going to be no demand with electric vehicles that's going to take over the world in the next few months. And it's going to go to zero, so we short it. Well, eventually, when that doesn't happen as quickly as it's supposed to be doing. I mean, you get a thing called margin call.
And then you get these little spikes that we've seen over the past few weeks. And this spike is not stopping yet. It's not stopping anytime soon. So, yeah, fun and games, fun and games. I wonder how many people have got these structures in place or had the structures in place, the selling the calls and buying the puts on the PGMs, you know, a really wide strategy. What is that called?
it's a fence you get put spritz put spritz or you get the the fence i mean what you what you mentioned you can you you buy a put and you you sell a few calls a little bit higher up so you sort of protect it in in between if it drops below your your you know where you bought your put um you're gonna you're gonna be making money or not making money you're just not gonna lose anything else but if it runs beyond that you need to cover those those uh those calls that you've you've you've thought it.
yes okay yeah that's horrible i know i know that i know that watching that screen i sold them i sold them at 25 look at the 45 bid Isn't that horrible? It is! And it's crazy. To listeners out there, go and read up on things called fences or derivative fence or put spreads. I mean, it's fascinating. And dangerous. Fascinatingly dangerous. Excuse me.
Literally, this is how things like this, because a lot of people will say, but how the hell did Lindsay and Scott chat about a platinum price staying around about the 900 to a thousand dollar levels for i want to say years i mean if we tell it about that how did it suddenly go from from those levels literally 30 percent higher in two three weeks time well that's how it happens you suddenly hit those those marks and you need to cover aka buy back those those those those
uh it's called short positions. And when you do that, you go high and you hit the next guy's uh more um trigger point and and they need to start buying back and before you know that your your pgm price is trading 30 percent higher yeah um interesting times they are let's have a look at some interesting markets now ahead of the fed dollar round is 1795 uh which is a dollar that is down a third of a percent um the british pound against the round is 24 17 and the euro round is 2068 euro dollar
1.1520 won't be there at half past eight South African time this evening. And the British pound is 1.3465 against the greenback. Let's have a look at the commodities which have dominated our conversations this evening. We haven't spoken about gold, but let's do so because it's very quiet. It's down just a few dollars at $33.89 per ounce. The platinum price, the aforementioned, is up 3% and a bit at $13.06. and palladium. A bit of a lag at up 0.4% at $10.60 per ounce.
The oil price has been extraordinarily volatile for obvious reasons. At the moment Brent crude oil is $74.93 down 2% and crude in the Texas variety of crude, West Texas, is $73.56 down 1.2%. Any other big moves on my screen? No, not much. Natural gas up 3%. three percent. At the moment, right.
Let's go back and have a look at some of the, there's no news on the, as you said, there's some bitty noises coming out of the JSC listed companies in terms of trading updates and results, etc. But nothing to get your teeth into today, Scott. No, for the listeners out there that say we always run by the moment, Metrofile, they had a further caution announcement still saying that somebody is trying to take them over. This will be the second time because we know they're in the 2020s.
There was an attempt, I can't remember what the company's name was, but an attempt to actually take over Metrophile, but it was abandoned due to the whole COVID-19 pandemic. But today they just reiterated that there's ongoing talks of a possible takeover and that saw Metrophile in a trading 6.7% higher. Braid came out with their financial results. I thought Braid is sort of on the, I mean, it's a company that's taken a lot of flack from myself personally.
I mean, we always joked about this being just a Virgin Active play now, which it still most probably is. I mean, 60, 62% of the nav is made up of Virgin Active, but people are clearly, I don't know if that song in the 80s hit that perfect beat body. I mean, So people are clearly hitting that perfect beat body because the members have been growing Virgin Active. The revenue is up 13% for Virgin Active itself. EBITDA up 45% year on year. So things are looking good.
They've spun off the other large holding, which is about 30 or 32% of the company's premier group. And that you and I chatted about two weeks ago. Very good results. Solid set of results.
coming from that that food group and then you look i mean we can't even touch it i think it's three percent of the total knife but i mean uh i heard a commentator today had a very interesting spin on this still trading at a 30 discount and we get the feeling when you read these these results is that they sort of setting up a possible listing for virgin active itself um which could be really really interesting because that that'll be most of bright pretty much being listed itself.
So you're talking about derivative play. If you've got a long, bright, and a short Premier group, you're pretty much taking a full-on view on Virgin Active. So it's an interesting take on that. But I thought that Bright's results look good.
They've been under massive, massive pressure, headwinds upon headwinds, where they eventually had to do uh raj raj issues a successful one for that matter um but they had to do it but it seems seems like that that is that is back on track and i'm not even going to talk about renogen renogen we know that there's a there's a there's a there's a a possible merger with the asp isotopes um most probably if that is concluded we'll we'll see renogen change its name or being uh inwardly listed
to ASP isotopes. But as I mentioned, we're not going to really... going to no no you've already lost me anyway nodding off there i feel like donald trump at the military parade listening to you with that stuff you can't tell me that i didn't even try and make boring exciting so yeah yeah you did very well if you're desperate enough to trade braids against um uh the virgin active if it does this then really i think you may be you may be in in the wrong sphere of employment. Skalk?
I want to ask you something because I'm not a subscriber to any of these fancy screens. I just happen to go on the internet and get stuff. Have you got the CRB index graph? Can you get it? Very quickly as well, yeah. Yeah, and I'll do some talking while you do that. I'll go through some numbers. US 10-year treasury bond is 4.35%. That's all important, of course, ahead of the US interest rate decision. the S&P 500 is 6,064, which is the September futures up 0.4%.
The South African 10-year is 10.11%, which is respectable. Didn't like it below 10%, but I'm sure it'll retry there. Bitcoin, 104,700, we'll call it, up slightly, 0.4% higher. I've given you the CRB index. Well, I've given you the oil price.
i've given you that uh so let's go back now and have a look at movers on the jjc while skulk is digging out the crb index long-term graph because it's at a recent high i know that he's still digging like it is oh you've got it have you okay tell me i couldn't get back to where it has been higher than its current level of 385 roughly what have you got you're gonna You're looking at 10-year data, and that's usually A bit of a problem. So, yeah, it's not trading at the all-time highs yet.
I'm putting it at the all-time one now. If you look at it on a 10-year basis let me see. Here we go. There we go. I got the 10-year, but today's price was still the highest in 10 years, I thought. No? Am I wrong? Yes. It is the highest in 10 years, definitely. So if you look at the commodity index, it's been you see you see the 385 levels which is a which is a 10 year 10 year high but in 2009 um it was as high as 400 and just shy of 460.
okay so 75 points to go to all-time record highs roughly correct correct correct but if you look at this graph which um my graph is running you know from from the beginning of 1994, where the data actually started. Yeah, if you look at this graph now, and you want to call an end to the school of the commodity super cycle, you're going to be a brave, brave man doing so. Because this graph... It's powerful, eh? This is powerful.
And just for anyone that doesn't know, CRB means Commodity Research Bureau. It's an index of commodities. And it goes from everything from maize to methanol.
I mean the methanol price example I can give you in front of my screen here I can look at different types of steel if you want hrc steel whatever that is i can give it to you titanium milk prices everything canola oil so every single commodity that industry and you and i use every single day is on this thing craft pulp that's that's on here it's a down 10.43 percent for the year so far but the lean hogs are doing much better they're on 23 percent Anyway, you get the picture.
The world has been buying commodities. It is dominated by energy prices, but these other ones are still important. No, for sure. It's a well-balanced. I think that's why they haven't changed it because usually people tend to turn around and say, but it's really, really skewed in terms of energy prices, the Brent or West Texas Indymedia.
But I think it's a… beautiful beautiful uh beautiful index and it's giving you an idea of where we are and i think like i said the the commodity super cycle i think it's still very very much intact julie goods um i i promised you some um jsc winners and losers where's my thing gonna there it is um i've got karu at 4.7 in plats up four percent african rainbow minerals are 3.3 percent winner we buy cars up three and a quarter. Northern Platinum up just over 3%.
On the downside, DRD Gold 2.6% weaker. Vodacom 2.2 and a third, let's call it. Advertec 2.1. Telcom 2% down. Kumba Iron Ore just under 2% lower. Any others that I've missed, Scott? No, I think you've covered them all. I think... Good. In that case, you get on with the indices, please.
so jc all share close to that 94 993 points uh that is up 35 basis points resource index up 48 base up 58 basis points while industrial index were up 52 basis points uh financial index that was uh just just keeping itself in the in the positive with a rant this was a bit under pressure six basis points positive while the sa property index that was up 34 basis points we look at the value trade value trade today uh let's just quickly open that one up on my screen um
that's uh not a bad day 25 billion traded through the market but i mean we've been we've been seeing solid solid uh values going through the jse lately i mean past five days uh we haven't really seen it below 30 billion i mean yesterday 34 day before that just show 39 day before that also just show 39 so yeah not Not bad. Final question. Very final question. Quick answer. The JSC Limited listed on the JSC itself. What's it been doing because of those high volumes that you've just spoken of?
We've been one of the better. I mean, I looked at that data over the weekend and South Africa now find itself as that just I think it's now moved into the 10th position. 10th best performing country in the sea. for 2025. But the actual share price of JSC Limited, has that been responding as well? I haven't checked. I can go and check, but that won't be it. We'll do that next time. It's interesting to see because it doesn't often get mentioned on this show.
It's never in the winners and losers, but it surely must be very gratified by big numbers that you spew out every time we talk, which is nice. Skalk, thanks very much for your time as always. Skalk Lowe is a portfolio manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak Division. Skalk, I want you to drive safely this weekend. You're going away. Be careful on the roads. We want you back next Wednesday with the JSC Limited and all sorts of other things that are undoubtedly going to happen between now and then.
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