You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams. The JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the 5 o'clock shadow. And it's a Wednesday, so it's time for Skalk Lou, Portfolio Manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town. It's the 4th of July on Friday, which means that the US markets are already quiet, Skalk, which means the European markets are getting quiet as well. And that feeds down to the JSC securities.
exchange but there's a couple of things to talk about and i'd like to talk about a local stock and we've spoken about it on a couple of occasions it's called sassel tell me more yeah yeah so i mean okay so firstly yeah i told you last week i'm not gonna repeat myself i i got this one wrong oh yes you had to you had to justify a stock that was going to go up or something and you You were right for 48 hours. I was right for a little bit longer. I think it must have been 72 hours. Well done.
But who's counting? Well, clearly me. I am. Yeah. So then everything just went south. And so, yeah, I think today, big mover, big mover on the JSC. We've seen it actually increase by 7.2%. Oh, wait a minute. I just saw the close. We just literally went after the auction, actually closed the day at 8. point four percent in the green very good above 86 um yeah at least 86 31.
so yeah i would say even a broken clock was right twice today and this broken clock was right today but anyway i think people or the listeners might might have the question because there was no there was no um uh sense announcement the oil price is slightly higher but not not enough to really have this movement and i think that the the answer is the there was definitely some some excitement in the u.s chemicals industry um yesterday yeah yeah there's a company listed on the jse jse
new york stock exchange um i'm going to try and pronounce this leon leon de barcel and that's a that's a it's a it's a it's a chemical company yes and yesterday looked really good, came out with good results and was up 5.8%. And that sort of basically moved up all these chemical companies. And Sasol, we know, is a very, very large part of Sasol, is chemicals. Right about half of the company is actually, or close to half of the company, is actually in the chemical business.
So this is great, great, great news for Sasol. We know that this is one of the companies that... It's been a darling on the JSE and had a horrible year or two. So, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, it seems to me that it's sort of jostling. I mean, it went just above 100 grand a share at Sassl and then pulled back dramatically after you picked it. Now it's above 86 again. It seems to me that there must be some people taking some... big chunks.
Some people have been selling big chunks on a rally that's come from, gosh, what was the low on this thing? Was it in the 50s or the 60s, Scott? I think it was the 50s, wasn't it? It was in the 50s. So it nearly doubled in a very short space of time in 2025. And when that happens, some people say, phew, I've lost money, but I've got a little bit of my money back. And so there's big chunks going at these higher levels. But other people accumulating. Maybe they've seen it now.
Maybe they say with the RAND strong, the RAND's going to weaken. Maybe they see with the oil price bubbling under a little bit and still with tensions in the Middle East that it could go higher. I don't know. But it's an interesting one, definitely one to keep an eye on, and definitely not one for the widows and orphans, of course. Exactly. I mean, this is where we want to start it off. This is not one for the widows and orphans.
in in my portfolio currently i think it makes up not even two percent of the portfolio so um yeah but i think it's really important to note that this is this is although this is a company that has done extremely well two weeks ago in that sort of the the eye of the storm when when when iraq and in iran and israel are bombing each other that's where this company literally went from 80 80 bucks to 100 bucks in days.
So yes, that actually... prove that that Cecil is quite a good hedge you know for any geopolitical unrest but I mean I don't want to buy a company just purely on on speculating on on war and and then we've had the discussion often I mean we don't nobody wants nobody wants this to escalate any further so so I've got Cecil because I do think that, and I didn't have Cecil in my portfolios all the time.
There was a time where I did feel it was a little bit overstretched, and we know that that was under massive, massive pressure. And for the oil side, listeners should know that Cecil's break-even price on the oil side is about $58 per barrel. So when the oil price got very, very close to that, let's call it $58, There was a big worry, and that's why we've seen this big retracement.
But they did mention on the recent Roadshow, which was about a month, month and a half ago, they mentioned that they've got a three-year focus program where they're looking at, I think they call it Focus 2028 or something like that, where they're going to work on bringing that break-even price down to $50 per barrel. Add to that, they've actually been quite cash flow positive lately. And also, remember, they had that fine where they sued the Transnet. And eventually, now they're settled.
A few weeks ago, there was that settlement. So this definitely helps us with higher debt levels. And always the Lake Charles, the Lake Charles scenario, especially now with this. interest in chemicals, because that's a pure chemical plant, if there's going to be interest in US chemical plants, Lake Charles will suddenly have a massive magnifying glass on it and there will be interest for Sassl.
And that, in a very long-winded way, is why I do think this movement that we've seen today is justified. We've seen the recent trend. I mean, you like your technical charts. I've got a chart where I've looked at these And you can see it actually formed a very, very nice support level around about the 60-rand level, and it popped now.
And if it now breaks this 100-rand level again, again, I'm no technical analyst, but if it breaks this 100-rand level, firstly, that I think could be a very, very interesting one. And then secondly, I know some of these technical analysts, they like looking at the 50-day and the 200.
day moving averages when this 50 day crosses the the 200 they call it what they call it a golden cross there we go golden cross and we're getting mighty close that 50 50 day moving average is getting mighty mighty close to the to the 200 days so just um yeah just a short explanation about lake charles the u.s chemical industry and golden crosses yes thank you very much yeah i get what you mean though and there's there's some daylight
between like 100 and the old high on SASL, which was, gosh, again, I couldn't remember whether it was the 50s and the 60s on the low side, double digits. What about the triple digits? Was it 450 or 550 it went to? There was the latter, but I mean, that was quite some time ago. But when we look at the, let's call it the end of 2023, which is pretty much a little bit more than a year and a half ago, the share price was trading at... at 260, 270 Rand levels.
To your question there on 5,500, okay, let's see, 2014. Ah, okay. 2014, the share price was trading at 650 Rand. How's them apples? How'd you like them apples, eh? Funnily enough, that film was on last night on Dutch TV, Good Will Hunting, where that phrase was really made famous. I digress, Scott, because I tend to. The dollar round is 1763 British pound against the round 2398. And the euro round is 2076 with the euro dollar 11775. I can't believe I'm saying these numbers.
And that's the euro that's actually about a quarter of a percent weaker in very quiet conditions. British pound 13602 against the mighty greenback gold price 3342, which is a nice move. It's difficult with me and my primitive steam-driven screens, a scalp, because gold being a 24-hour market, I don't know when one has closed and when another has opened. But anyway, I've got up nearly 1%, and that's $29 per ounce. The platinum price, is this right? Up 5 2 3rds percent?
Have I got the wrong screen here? Is platinum up 5 2 3rds percent? 5 2 3rds percent at $14.24. Is that correct again? No, no, you're a little bit light. It's a little bit smaller. It's currently 14.06. Oh, okay. And in palladium, 11.50. But it did go to that 14.25 level because my chart is still ticking away here. But anyway. That's correct. Yes, and palladium you've already given us. Let's go to the oil price, which we mentioned, of course, in conjunction with your very neat summary of Sassel.
Brent crude oil, $67.71 per barrel, which is up 0.9%. And West Texas, $65.95, up three quarters of a percent. Any other big movers there on my screen? Steel prices up 2.2%. No, nothing to write home about. The South African 10-year bond yield. is, goodness me, look at this thing go. There's no stopping it at 9.83%. The US 10-year, not so enthusiastic. Going the other way, the yield has risen by three basis points to just over 4.28%.
The S&P 500, which was down after the tariff announcement on Liberation Day, the S&P 500 plummeted to something like 4,500, didn't it? I haven't got the low. And for all the world, we were saying it's going to 2,500, 3,000, and this is horrible. There's going to be a US recession, and the world is going to go into a recession as well. It's going to be horrible. Here we are, the S&P up at a new high as we speak on the September futures anyway, 6,260, up around about 0.2%.
What else have we got? Bitcoin also doing okay, 108,420, which is up 2.3%. So some stuff going on, but tomorrow essentially the markets are closed, Scott, because of the long weekend in the United States. And the big beautiful bill might get passed as soon as July the 4th. In fact, probably as soon as tomorrow night. Yeah, it will be the big beautiful, beautiful bill and the Elon deportation bill. Oh yeah, he's going back to South Africa apparently.
He's got, hey, he's been given more to... more, what's the word? I've got tariffs in my head now. He's been given more subsidies than any man in history, according to the big orange one. No, I mean. Where does he get that? You and I had this conversation last week about never dull moment. I mean, it's basically the 2nd of July. I mean, he started off the 21st of January. And it's just no, not one week. One week. Give me one week where we... didn't see Trump just do something crazy.
No, there isn't a day when he hasn't done anything crazy. And although one can loathe him, like some people do, every day I wake up and I say, oh, it's raining, I've got nothing to do, and I've got to go to this meeting and do this podcast, I think. But I've still got Donald Trump to look forward to. It's like that. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's just crazy. When you get somebody that criticizes your big, beautiful bull, and for good reason.
I mean, I follow Elon, and I mean, I'm not always the biggest supporter, so to speak. I mean, he does things awkwardly as well. But I mean, if you look at what he says about the bull, about the debt levels already, the deficits, I mean, he makes a few good points.
but man oh man and then trump turns around and say well well that's it i'll just deport you yes and he's also going to arrest he's also going to read there's a democratically elected mayor of new york who happens to be a socialist and he happens to be 32 or 33 years old and he's got some pretty pretty far left views trump says uh we can't have a communist as mayor of new york i'm going to arrest him i don't know what on what charge But you'll find something. He's fabulous. You'll find something.
But that will be next week's craziness. Today is nearly done. And as you mentioned, you know, Saturday is the 4th of July, Independence Day. So, yeah, I think we'll wind this down now. Well, not Saturday. I mean, Friday. Friday, yeah. Okay. I've still got Cecil's pre-auction closing. But anyway, Cecil, the big mover today, up over 8%. 8% Okumba-Ironore up nearly 7%, Glencore up over 5%, Anglo-American PLC up nearly 5%, and Motus chipping in with a 4.2 gain. On the downside, Bytes.
Now, is this a story? Yeah, yeah. I just want to add to the gainers, because one that clearly didn't reach your screen, which is on the maybe smaller side, is Sun International. That was up today 7.9%, which will be one of the largest gainers today. And the reason was that deal. They actually had a bid to buy, what is that, Empress Palace? Man, I'm hitting a blank now. That company that owns Empress Palace. But anyhow, it'll get to me now. But they actually made the, Piedmont, there we go.
I would always be something. Piedmont, that's better. Piermont in March 2024. And it wasn't the first time that they made a bid to buy them. And the offer on the table this time around was 7.3 billion. They tried to take over Piermont in 2015, where they offered 4 billion rand. Now, why this is important, when they made this offer March last year, We saw massive, massive retracement in the share price, and for good reason.
Because, I mean, 2020, this company was mighty, mighty, mighty close to going bankrupt, naturally because of COVID and those kind of things. And they had to do a rights issue. And, Lindsay, this is a good one. This is a good one. If you took up your rights, now the rights issue was done in 2020. I think it was September, October-ish. 2020. It was done at 9,45. Okay. Share price today, sorry, 9,44. Share price today closed at 47,60. That's a full bag of more than that. That's more.
Four and a half. I think Mr. Marker just said they're very, very good. They retraced that offer and said they're not not going to take over Piedmont anymore in the market. Natchi loved it. Back to your bytes. Yeah, bytes down 30% on my screen. What happened? Not an ex-dev story, literally just a statement, let's call it a market update, where they mentioned that things are not going as well as they should.
They actually mentioned it's been a challenging year and they basically told us that but profits are going to be flat.
flag for this year and coming off massive massive uh profits so going from uh let's go close to 30 30 odd million or billion uh profit to being being flat this is a this is naturally another case of death so share price down 29 29 and a quarter percent okay and the other ones i've got tiger browns down six and two-thirds percent the reason i don't say the second one supr because i I don't know what it is. down 10%. What's SUPR? I've got no idea. I don't feel so bad then.
But anyway, SUPR is down 10%. A tug around six and two thirds, as I said. Vukile down four and two thirds. And I think this one is Shakespeare Capital. And that's down nearly 4%. Any others on the downside quickly, Scott? No, no, no. Just I think for anybody going to get a heart attack, Tiger Brands is a special dividend and an interim dividend. so yeah Quite a large dividend there in Vukilia as well. Vukilia is also an ex-Dev story. Thank you very much indeed.
Give us the closing JSE prices, indices, please. So the JSE closed today at 96,609 points. That's down 31 basis points. Resources were up 1.8%. Industrials down 94 basis points. And the financials were down 88 basis points. Even the SA property stocks had a bit of a hiding today. They were done. 1.55%. And when we look at the turnover today, not a bad day for, let's call it, going into a US summer break. Just over $27 billion went through the JSC today. So quite a sum of that.
And next week, of course, you'll tell me about the JSC Limited and what it's been doing recently, because we did have this conversation and you did promise, but I didn't remind you. And I should have done. But next week, we'll do that. JSC Limited. I'm writing it down. And of course, I'll throw it away. But nonetheless, list. I'm satisfied that I'm doing it. Skulk, thank you so much for your time this evening. Skulk Lowe is a portfolio manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town.
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