You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams. JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock shadow. And as it's a Wednesday, as always, I speak to Skullclo, Portfolio Manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town. Here we are on the verge of a long weekend in the United States, essentially, because tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Now, I forgive all legions of American listeners. I don't really know what Thanksgiving is, Skull.
What are they giving thanks for again? Can you remind me? Something to do with the founding fathers or the people that settled in America? What is it? Yeah, you got me there. Exactly. You got me there. I just noticed they eat a lot of turkey. Yeah. And yeah. Hormone injected things from Walmart and places like that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that you've got two versions now. It's a Thanksgiving version and then the Thanksgiving.
version apparently and the latter is just those uh people that you know decided not to eat any any uh what's it animal products so yeah well i i've got no no problem with that but i know yeah i wish people would just keep it to themselves why do you have to tell everybody it's like people that write motivational books i have to tell everybody if you're motivated that's great but i don't want to Hey, I read a book that tells me the first thing I must do in the morning is make my
bed because it's good discipline and I must meditate for half an hour at lunchtime and that sort of thing. Very good idea for you, not necessarily for me. Scott, what happened on the market today? Sorry, that was a very interesting intro. I think with the anticipation of Thanksgiving and also the market is going to be quiet, I do get this feeling there's sort of a lacklustreness. today in the markets. I mean, we've had quite a bit of movement lately. We had Trump come out two days ago.
What was it yesterday? Yeah, two days ago. We're now starting to draw these lines in the sand, which I found interesting because we know the first speech is only 20 January. So that's quite a bit of time to go. And he's already went like, that's it. Mexico, Canada, prepare yourself, you're going to be tariffed at 25%. Yeah, and that's NAFTA, isn't it? North American Free Trade Association is those three countries. The United States of America, obviously, Canada, yes, and Mexico.
And he doesn't like that, and I don't know why he doesn't like it, because as far as I know, with my limited trade geopolitical knowledge, I think it's done rather well. Yeah. I think so too. And we saw the after effect yesterday because yesterday, I'll look when we're sort of in it, but yesterday, the likes of the Volkswagen's and the BMW's and those share prices really took a almighty beating in the market. And purely on the back of these now tariff talks. And I think it's really early days.
I don't think, and I can see today the likes of Volkswagen down again, but yesterday was really hammered. And I don't know, I think one should really just be, take a deep breath and let's just get over the Christmas season. Because how I think this is going to go, it's not necessarily how it's going to go, but people thinking that now the likes of the Volkswagens... BMWs and Stellantis and all these European brands are going to be hit with a lot of tariffs.
Need to just be mindful that as much as America is importing these European brands, they're also exporting. They're exporting the likes of Ford and GM and those type of cars. So, why don't you just, I think, just be sort of, just take a deep breath. Let's just get through this market. And I. Back to your first question, I get the feeling today is sort of that, oh, wait a minute, let's just sit down, get through Thanksgiving, get through Christmas, and let's see where this goes.
The wording of his tariff threats, which he spouted the whole time he was on the campaign trail for the presidency, which, of course, we know he won quite convincingly, he talked about it, but then the wording of yesterday's announcement, you know, 25% here, there, and then China will come. It was almost as though he was wielding an axe as a threat. The axe, it may not come down.
And it was almost as though he was saying to Mexico, for example, if you tighten up your border controls in conjunction with my new border czar, as they call him, then we'll review the situation. He's sort of threatening, in other words. He's a dangling carrot and threatening at the same time, as only Donald Trump can do. So maybe it's that. I don't know. It's very interesting. I agree. It's really exactly as you said, because 2016, Trump came in and says, we're going to build a beautiful wall.
And Mexico is going to pay for it. And Mexico is going to pay for it. And he realized, I think the sort of the Trump 1.0 realized this is going to be this is going to be difficult and it's going to be expensive. Now, he just went like I said, well, we're going to slap you. We're going to slap you with 25 percent tariffs. And remember, his wording was was. He's going to start now. Day one, he said, more or less.
On January 20th, and now I'm actually quoting him, on January 20th, as one of my many first executive orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada 25% tariffs on all products coming into the United States. And it's ridiculous. Ridiculous. I can actually hear him say that. And it's ridiculous open borders. And here's the very important point.
The terrorists will remain in effect until such time as the drugs, in particular phenol, and all these illegal aliens stop this invasion into our country. Bribery, in other words. Quid pro quo. There we go. And we know the Mexican president already turned around and said, well, he's going to do everything in his power to immediately start addressing these illegal aliens. migrating towards, you will put, hey, that's better than the wall.
I mean, now you're sitting with both Canada and Mexico stating, and they're going to do pretty much everything in their power to get this addressed because, man, 25% is a hell of a lot if you suddenly… It's not just the companies that are impacted, of course. It's the person that buys something that comes from Mexico, whether it be, I don't know, a vegetable product or something like that. Suddenly, if it costs… $5. It now costs, and this is where my maths comes, 25. What's a quarter of five?
Anyway, it's a lot. It impacts you across the board. You don't know 120 or something like that. I don't know. But yeah, exactly, 120. So yeah, he plays dirty, Trump. But if it's effective, then good on him. I mean, I'll never like him. But if it works, then that's good. I'll tell you what has worked as well, which must have really irritated Trump, is Joe Biden coming up with the minimum of 60 days ceasefire should it hold.
between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is a really good step in the right direction. If only Gaza could have been included as well, but it hasn't. And so long may it continue, long may the slaughters continue, and away we go from there. But Trump must be gnashing his teeth because he wanted to get the glory of putting something like that in place in January or starting in January.
Well, at least now there's maybe some possibility because He could actually come in as president and do, what did he say? He's going to stop this war within 24 hours. Well, that's the Ukraine war. Yeah, I mean, that's something completely different. I mean, I could stop the war. I'd just go to Mr. Putin and say, listen, you can have what you've taken. Let's just get on with our lives again. That's the easy way to stop it. Or to say to Putin, you know, your state is falling apart.
And on that note, Skalk, what did you see about Gazprom Bank today? What did you see about that? You saw the story or not? No, I missed that one. I was out and about today presenting and I must say I missed that one. Okay, there was a new hashtag on X and it was Russia bank collapse. And I thought, it doesn't seem as though the markets are particularly perturbed by this. And what the US has done is imposed very, very strict sanctions on Gazprom bank.
And we know what Gazprom is and they've got a bank as well, which seems logical to fund all their various activities. And the ruble went to its lowest level since the invasion of Ukraine. And people were saying, oh, well, this is the end. The economy is going to collapse and this will be the downfall of Putin. And I looked at the gold price and, OK, it's done OK today, hasn't it? It's up $23 on my screen, up close to a percent. I don't know if that's geopolitically related or US dollar related.
Looks like US dollar related to me. with the euro about, what, points, two-thirds of a percent higher. But it's one of those days, Skelke, I think, where lots of things are going on, and yet nothing really is, if you see what I mean. No, no, no, exactly. We can, you know, the dollar index as well. Dollar index down 60 basis points. That's, I would say, you know, looking towards the gold prices, sort of giving you most of the answers. But, yeah, like I said, not a lot happening in the market.
Do I? think that a lot's going to happen during December? Yes, I do think so. I still firmly believe we're going to have a really exciting Most probably volatile in December. We've seen Biden come out a week or two ago saying, well, there we go. You can take our long range missiles and use it today. He came out with the cease. I mean, so there's a lot of things happening from the from the Democrat side. All it's called that the outgoing president.
And we know the incoming president has been been been quite active. I mean, when last did we see him this active on X? So I think it's going to be a fun, fun, fun time on.
these these medias and social medias yeah let's uh let's hope it's good fun rather than bad fun skulk i need to pick your brain a little bit uh because uh black friday's coming up and i've got a retail sector podcast to do on on friday and it's going to be very much related to the influence of black friday but on this sa retail sector not not in the us because black friday is now a global phenomenon of course and the recent Trading updates and results coming out of the retail sector.
To me, I mean, my theme is you can't just blanket buy the retail sector. You have to choose your stock and the sector within the sector very carefully. Would you say that's correct? Yes. Yes, you definitely need to do so. You definitely need to do so. But I do agree with you. I think this Black Friday is going to be a particularly interesting one.
you know from a african point of view we've seen the likes of mr price um you know they they update that came through i think a week or two ago we've had pep call this week i think yesterday that also looked good we had a great reaction with the market and once you just realized this was most of these updates pretty much until september um the real effect of of this two-part system i think is going to be mind-boggling um
Do you think people will dip in because they're allowed to now and use it to spend, whereas before they haven't been able to? Are they going to give themselves some retail therapy? Well, I just need to look at the stats that's been provided already. I mean, we're looking at SARS. The stats are really telling us that we're looking at more than 50 billion rands worth of pension fund money through this two-part system has been withdrawn.
And a lot of… Very clever people out there will say, well, about half of that. Okay. I think that's a thumbs up. But about half of that is going to be used to reduce debt. And the other half is going to be used to use as retail therapy. And, I mean, I think I'm sticking my hand up first and saying, well, I don't think they're paying off half their debt. I think it's way less. And I think this Black Friday might just be.
be a really, really interesting turn of events with more money being into the South African system through this two-part system. Okay. We'll look forward to that. Meanwhile, on a very quiet day, let's go straight to the markets where the dollar rand is 1821. British pound against the rand is 2301. And the euro rand is 1919. Euro dollar, the aforementioned 105.35.
which is now a half a percent gain for the euro against the greenback uh gold price uh 26 41 up 21 an ounce or 0.8 now platinum is 938 which is up 14 an ounce and palladium has also gone from four figures to three figures over the last couple of days 994 which is uh up four dollars an ounce actually now let's have a look at crude oil it's been remarkably quiet recently i thought the cessation of hostilities in between Israel and Lebanon might sort of stabilize the region a bit but not a
bit of it the Brent crude oil price up 0.3 percent to 7303 and West Texas 6891 which is up 0.2 percent natural gas prices have fallen five and three quarters percent goodness me it's quite a big move there and elsewhere no not much really it's a pre-thanksgiving break we're having here as for US stock markets ahead of the big day tomorrow very very quiet obviously you S&P 500 futures, 6,030, down very, very slightly. The US 10-year bond yield has also been quite of late.
It's firming up, though. 4.29%, yield falling, bonds rising. South Africa, the same, actually. South African 10-year has done very well last few days. 9.18% currently. Bitcoin coming off the boil.
Looked for all the world it would be through 100,000 and beyond, but no. below 95 000 now 94 640 which is nonetheless a 1.4 percent gain are you seeing anything scale i know you've been on the road today so these sort of things these sort of things are immaterial to you quite honestly clients are more important on these days yeah yeah yeah i said this only in november usually we as uh wealth managers do spend more more of our time on the on the road uh giving report backs and uh they're really
spinning it behind a computer but something did you know catch mom and we had uh nam pac uh bring out a trading statement today and I don't know what to make of it. Let's start with the bad side. I mean, share price reacted at 12.5%. I'm dumb. Yes, I'm saying. That's a big one. This is one of those scenarios where I, unfortunately, do not have a really positive stance on it. A lot of the times I compliment companies for bringing out really thorough.
um in a sense announcements keeping the shareholders you know updated but this one was just bad i mean it was it was such a you know bad report in terms of you could see there's going to be major major losses somewhere um and it was just cryptically said this is what's happening we've had this major you know downgrade on our earnings and um yeah that's it that's pretty much just So I think for the listeners out there, they will most probably be waiting for the actual results to come through.
And hopefully that will give them some better insights. But if this is true, then there's going to be some major, major losses coming from Nampak's side. And then this drop that we've seen in the share price today has been totally justifiable. Yes, it will be in thin conditions. Argent came out with numbers as well, interim numbers, share price down. nearly 4%. Let's go straight to the JSC board now. I've got one more. One of my favourite sectors lately is naturally HyProp.
We had an impact that was bad, but HyProp reacted 2.6% on their operational update. I don't know if there are listeners out there that don't know HyProp. They specialise in retail property. Very well-known shopping centres like Canal Walk. the Somerset Mall, Table Bay Mall, I mean, very well-known, you know, Cape Town, Capetonian type of malls, but also they've got an East European portfolio as well, but they focus mostly on retail property.
Things that really stood out, and these are things that you and I have been chatting about, you know, as we went from COVID, where everybody said, well, nobody's going to be going to shopping centers anymore, everybody's going to be buying online, you know, office, nobody's going to go back to office. We now see that a lot of people, I mean...
Even Elon Musk said one of the first things he's going to do is he's going to force every single person that's from a government employee point of view that's still not working remotely to go back to an office. But Peter, when you look at the retail vacancies, 2%, man, that is really, really, really good.
The office vacancies still on the high-ish side, 17.7%, but... be mindful this was trading at 27.4 a year ago so a massive massive recovery in in in the office vacancies and like i said retail vacancies are two percent it's just beautiful so yeah i think it's a it's a really a positive update i can't wait to see the actual result not a shelter of high prop to do have a shielding in in the retail space through resilient very similar but um as mentioned high prop today React at 2.6% positive.
So I thought that was a big win for shareholders. I'm looking at my leaders board and another share is a top of the list that is a property company. Primary Health Property, PLC, up 6.1%. I mean, that's obviously very specific within the property sector. Is this right? Am I talking or am I talking nonsense? Primary Health Prop, is that a property company? I actually don't know, Lindsay. I mean, this is a company that falls outside the... They're all sheer.
It looks very, very thin, I must say, looking at the graph of it today. Okay. Another one, mass is second on the list as well. Gosh, I really should do my research on that. But when I see pH prop, I think of property. Anyway, 6.1% up. Mass up 4%. Pick and pay doing well, 3.5% better ahead of this Black Friday event. Pepcor, the one that you mentioned earlier on after a trading statement, followed through buying today. with a three and a third percent gain. And it was five percent up yesterday.
It was five percent up yesterday and today another three and a third. I mean, this is, oh, we'll be talking about more than eight percent in two days. That's great, great stuff. It is, and it's very encouraging that the day after a trading statement or a set of results, people sit down and having read them a little bit more carefully say, OK, we didn't get in yesterday, but it's not too late because we still think this has got a way to go. I always find it encouraging.
If you get a share that goes shooting up on the day of results, you're going to get a lot of feedback from people. and then comes down the next day, you realise that the day before maybe it was just a short covering from hedge funds or something like that. I don't know. But that is a very good sign indeed. Impressive performance over 48 hours. Adfotech up 3%. Downside, Roinert 4.1. Redefine down 4%. Telcom down 3.1. Exaro down 3%. And Tringela nearly 3% weaker. Any others on your board, Skunk?
No, I could just maybe just add into the mix also SAC is a corporate. They also, I mean, also another property company, also up 2.5%. Also, they've got the likes and property in the retail space. So clearly, I mean, your retail therapy is not only for the retailers themselves. I'm talking about Pepcom, Mr. Price, et cetera, et cetera. Also. looking at the companies. I mean, we know there's going to be a few people standing at queues, you know, this coming Friday on Black Friday.
So this naturally will be good for these shopping centres as well, these retail companies and the property companies. Yeah, indeed. And just one final word on Black Friday. Do you think it dilutes the Christmas spending factor? Yeah, very much so. Very, very much so. But I think there's a lot of people that use the Black Friday. specials as part of their Christmas shopping. I know my kids use it as part of their Christmas shopping spree.
So, yeah, maybe to a certain extent, but also, I mean, to get your Christmas shopping done a little bit cheaper, that might be the order there. Okay. Hopefully you will get some lavish and well-thought-out gifts this Christmas, Skalk. Yes, that company, by the way, I've just been looking up. It's Primary Health Properties, PLC.
So... it is a property company but very niched obviously can you give us the closing jse indices please yes yeah jse closed today at 85 102 points that is down 35 basis points the top 40 76 710 points also down uh 39 basis points while the resource index today bucked the trend they actually managed to keep themselves in the green 41 basis points positive um as well as the sa property 19 basis points uh positive but The financials today closed down 1.14%, while the industrials down
0.15%. We look at the value trade. Let me just guess. Let me just guess today, educated guess, 17.4 billion. That was pretty much what we've seen yesterday. But funny enough, if we had this conversation at 5 o'clock. we would have seen, I think, more or less, you know, 15, 16 billion, which was close to your 17 billion. But clearly there, in the death, or let's call it the auction, we've seen quite a bit of movement. 21 billion for today. So this week, not a bad day. I mean, yesterday, 17.6.
But if we look at Monday, Monday, we had close to 38 billion. Friday, also 21 billion. So clearly there's some... some movement through the JSC, which is always encouraging. Very good. Skulk, keep going on the road, drive safely, and soothe your clients'nerves with some good results from the year. And we'll speak next week. That is Skulk Glow. That was Skulk Glow, Portfolio Manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak Division in Cape Town. And that was the 5 o'clock shadow.
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