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 always on a Wednesday, I speak to Scott Clow, portfolio manager and analyst at PSG Wealth, Old Oak in Cape Town. You can throw what you like at the market. You can bomb Iran with 30,000 tonne, no 12, sorry, 30,000 tonne bombs.
Israel and Iran can... be at war for 12 days and you think gosh if i'd have just woken up and seen those headlines i would have thought that the market would be down 10 15 no not a bit of it very close to record high scalp the s p i think yeah it is it is i mean there's this joke going around and i'm not a great joke teller but did you see that um the thing about um uh trump and now decided to to to build his first links golf course in Iran. No, I didn't see that joke.
No, no, no. He apparently already finished the first three holes. That's not fair. I thought that could give me a... Yeah, and still, like you mentioned, I mean, it's just, he managed to literally, a day or two later, well, let's say within a day, call both Israel and Iran up and say, guys, that's it. We are now going to have a ceasefire and we're going to talk about peace. Hours after he literally bombed the hell out of Iran. I know. Over the line. I mean, okay.
Firstly, I read yesterday morning when I read this announcement, and I did look at this and I was like, what? You're giving Iran six hours to continue their bombing and then they should start the ceasefire. And in the same moment he gave… Israel 12 hours. Oh boy, this is not going to end well. I think they waited eight minutes or something like that, eight minutes before the deadline. Israel just pumped a few more missiles into Iran. Okay, guys, that's it. We've got the ceasefire.
It's interesting that Netanyahu says we've finished our job. We finished our job. He didn't say anyway. He said we finished our job. Whether that was coordinated with Trump saying the ceasefire starts now because Israel had told him, OK, we've done enough, we've done all we can do. Or whether Netanyahu said that just to save face because he's been bullied by Trump. I can't work out what it is. I think he's been bullied by Trump.
And talking of Trump, he's just completed a press conference, which I watched in The Hague. You've never seen him so confident. I mean, he's been completely emboldened by the way that people have sucked up to him. Because they want him to carry on in NATO. They want the United States to carry on in NATO. Because they've got three and a half years more of Trump. So they have to be nice to him. And as for Mark Rutter, I used to like Mark Rutter when he was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
But to be so sycophantic and toady towards Trump, that private letter was only private for five minutes. I mean, that letter was ridiculous. I don't know. He's obviously the most powerful man in the world, Trump, and you have to be nice to him. But to write that stuff. And today he called him Daddy. Did you hear that? Rutter called him Daddy. No, I didn't. But he must be the first president ever to, in a formal press conference, throw the F-bomb. Yes. But it would just applaud him.
I don't think in history I've ever had... Any president, let's call it US president at least, throw the F-bomb in a formal press conference. He said that Israel and he shouted just before he got on, it was the last comment he made before he walked onto Marine One, the helicopter, to fly off to St. Andrews Airport space. He says, Israel and Iran don't know what the F they're doing. It was, you know, you can't edit that out because it's live, but CNN even played it again later on.
It's the first time I've ever heard them play a serious profanity on air. Exactly. It was a moment. I think it's a massive moment.
I mean, I don't think there's enough made out of this, because I think if the likes of President Ramaphosa or somebody, you know, some other president, you know, had those shenanigans that would have been i would have i would have thought that would have been massive massive massive news and he even turned around after he actually said that like you said he turned around and said did you get that did you get that yeah exactly anyway but be that so the markets are going up because they
think it's all over uh is it We hope so, of course, because it's very destabilizing for the region, and that region is volatile enough without this going on. But I can't help think that it'll make itself known in other ways, whether it be low-level terrorism or something. I don't know, Skagg. What's your opinion on this? It's over because Trump says it's over. Full stop. So one person. Well, I mean, I'm still waiting.
I mean, I think he said when he went into office, He's going to end the Russia-Ukraine war. What did he say? Was it two days? 24 hours. No, 24 hours. That's it. That's it. You're 100% right. He said 24 hours. So we know he couldn't get that one over the line yet. But there's a small matter of a date called the 9th of July. Yes. Oh, that's tariff days. Oh, that's tariff days. That's tariff days.
He actually paused the… terrorists for 90 days, and I think he's going to have a massive problem if the whole world is throwing bombs at each other, and he needs to make the big announcement that the US are going to whack the rest of the world with massive tariffs. I think he needs Iran and Israel to not just sit around and be quiet, sit there, eat your food, just be quiet, let me just get this over the line, and then you guys can do whatever you want to do.
There's so many things that are up in the air. When he first came in, we had the Panama Canal, and we had Canada, and we had Greenland, all of these things. Not a mention of them anymore. Not a mention. Whether he's got a team working on these imperialistic intentions, I don't know. But it's just, he goes from one thing to another. His thing at the moment, Scott, and this is a personal opinion, is he wants to get the Nobel Peace Prize, so he'll do anything.
He's claiming the India-Pakistan truce. And both India and Pakistan have said, well, India, have any of us said, no, nonsense. We spoke to Pakistan. It was nothing to do with Trump. He's claiming that. But he wants that. And he also wants his flagging poll numbers to be boosted because of what he's done to Iran. That's all it is. It's all personal. And anyone that says it's to make America great again are wrong. He doesn't care. He'd like to. But what he'd like to is make Trump. great again.
That's what he wants. Anyway, that's my little rant. How's that? Well, let's just, I'm just going to, we need to, because I have specific instructions to keep this short and sweet. Who told you that? Your wife? No, my wife. Naturally. So, I mean, whenever you've got a country, and your country, when you're a company, your company is valued in something that they call the share price.
And if your share price improves, then naturally you are doing well as a company, as management, as the CEO of a company, you're leading this company to heights. And that's why the share price is following and going upwards. Now, for a country, that share price is called a currency. And when I look at the share price of the USA, it's telling us, Mr. Market is not not really buying into the leadership currently.
Because, I mean, if you get a scenario where inflation is fairly under control and Powell's turned around and said, guys, I know I can, but we're not going to do this. I'm too worried about inflation going forward, all the tariffs and the effect that that's going to have. We've got wars. I mean, he's not in too much of a rush. I mean, he made it blatantly clear again yesterday. There is no major rush to. to decrease interest rates further for now. It's going to stay higher for longer.
That usually, if it was any other country, their share price would have gone up because that effectively is telling you, wait a minute, that's nice. I take my money from South Africa, my rands, go and convert it to the dollars, go and invest in the interest rates in the US because it's going to stay higher for longer. I'm going to get more.
bang for my buck and that's made no difference the share price or the dollar index 97.5 i mean today again i mean that is just just showing you the confidence currently in the leadership in the us confidence in in the us itself and its debt levels i think people taking large chunks of money out of the united states so they have to take those dollars and sell them on the the world's markets and that's what it's doing.
It's not, in your opinion, then, the anticipation of interest rates soon to come down. Goodness me, you should have heard what he said about Powell in the NATO press conference. You'll see it later on as you watch the highlights on television. He was horrible to him. He essentially said, I mean, he called him low IQ. He called him dumb. He called him stupid. All the usual things. This is the chairman of the Federal Reserve, a man he appointed. Come on now. Yeah, yeah.
That's it. The Federal Reserve chair, the chairman of the largest reserve or reserve bank in the world, central bank in the world. I mean, you're calling him stupid. Oh, man. Anyway, I mean, we can go on. I think for now, the market reacted positively. When I look at some of the short-term traders, they suddenly became massively upbeat. I saw a trade. I can't remember the guy. It was one of the big traders. He had an open trade where he's shorting gold and going along the S&P 500. Oh, yeah?
And, yeah. I don't know. He would have done well on shorting gold today, but that's briefly. You don't agree with that trade? I think I'm not a short-term trader. You know that. I've been long gold for many years, and I'm not planning to cut that position anytime soon. I mean, not what we just mentioned. So maybe it's somebody that's really, really got a very, very ultra short-term view. just maybe looking at a few hours or days.
I hope that's the case, because if they've got a, let's call it a longer-term view, I don't agree with that call, not at all. I think the S&P 500, as it currently stands, is grossly overvalued. Interest rates are going to stay higher for longer, so we know that the country itself has had a first-quarter retraction in the economic growth. We're waiting for the second quarter. That's going to be. That's going to be an actual recession. So we know the economy is retracting.
We know the currency is telling us that that's not doing too well. So I want to see why S&P 500 stays at these elevated new high levels day after day after day. Okay. We know what happens. We know how the story ends. But when it starts to end. That's the key, and you've got to be ready for it, Skulk. Just going back to Jerome Powell, he's heading back to Capitol Hill tonight. He's got a second day of testimony before Congress.
Trump said on social media yesterday, he must have had his bucket of nuggets and then just got a bit of a rush of artificial, not intelligence, of course, artificial flavorings from those nuggets. And he said, he called it very dumb. He said, we should be at least two to three points lower. What he said was today, when he was asked a question about Jerome Powell in The Hague, he said, just cut rates. And if inflation goes up, then raise them again. It's destabilizing, Donald.
You can't keep on doing that, mate. It's got to be a long-term decision. And Powell said, I'm waiting to see the effect of the tariffs. We haven't seen them yet. And as you quite correctly point out, July the 9th means more tariffs if nothing is done. And therefore there will be effects three months henceforward. Right. Anyway, it's going to be fun. I think this is what he was swearing in as president on the 21st of January, if I'm not mistaken.
Here we're sitting literally five months later on the 25th of June. And it's a four-year term. Buckle up, baby. It's going to be a wild ride. McDonald's and Krispy Kreme have ended. You can't buy Krispy Kreme donuts anymore from McDonald's. That shows you how much news there is coming out of the States at the moment, now that Iran and Israel are no longer in the headlines. Scout, Glee, JSC, today I saw First Run come out with a trading update. That's nothing.
But the other thing I've noticed, of course, is Cecil's demise. I mean, it's still up beautifully on the year from its low. Oh, no, sorry, from its lows, not on the year. But it was close to 100, and it's now in the low 80s. Volatile stock. Yeah, I want to say, just to prove a point that I'm not really a short-term trader, I'll tell you, I'll let you in on a secret. I was a media outlet last week. I think it was Monday. And I need to sort of give a stock pick.
And I all braved up, went like, hey, it's time. It's time. Let's go. Let's go. It's time to actually call Sasol a buy. Now, naturally, last week was followed by great moves. And on Friday, when I was trading 102 or 103 Rand, I was high-fiving myself every three minutes. Man, this guy knows how to pick stocks. So Monday, I need to go on the same outlet again. And I thought, now, how do you say double up to catch up?
This week, I decided to call Total. 24 hours later, you've got the, what do you call it, the ceasefire. And yesterday, Sasol dropped something like 15% or 12% today, another 2%. So I think model the story. Mark often said it, my crystal ball is the murkiest of murk at the best of days. But I think Sasol today closed 79.37, as I mentioned, another 2% down.
But, I mean, as mentioned, before this, let's call it the whole Israel-Iran escalated, Cecil already started to improve on the fact that they had this payment from Transnet. They settled there. That's going to reduce their debt. There's some plans with the whole Lake Charles, the US. So that's looking good. So everything started to look good, and the share price really started to move.
And currently, as we're sitting here, we're looking at a social share price, which is now trading lower before the whole Iran-Israel escalation. So if you liked it back then, I definitely like it more now. So at $80, I do think it's trading at, what do you call it, three times. forward PE multiple, it should be increasing its dividends. So I'm a long-term holder. Let's just make it 100% clear. If this thing drops down to $50, I would much probably buy some more. I'm not betting the farm.
My current holding is something like $2 or $3. I won't be so rude as to ask you what your average is at the moment with Sassl in your portfolio. No, it's about 2%, 3%. So it's not a big bet. It's definitely a company that I think, what last week has taught us with the likes of the Sassl, the ExxonMobils, the Totals, the BPs. What that has taught us is that it's a fantastic hedge against a further escalation, geopolitical escalation. So maybe just something to have a look at.
Sassl is, we will keep a close eye on that in coming weeks. Okay, let's have a look at some of the pertinent prices. The dollar-rand is 1779. The euro-rand is 2068. And the British pound against the round is 2423. Euro-dollar, 116.25. When a currency goes on a move, it doesn't stop. This could be two years in the making, this dollar bear market. It will just go. Difficult to stop it. It's in a trend. 116.25. People were talking about par with the euro. Not that long. ago. British Pound, 136.20.
Look at that. That was below 120 at one stage in the last year anyway. Commodities, gold price having a breather down $47 on my screen to 33.24. The platinum price, 13.11, which is up around about $5. Palladium down $12 or 1.1%. All right, the all-important crude oil that we've been talking about. I just looked at a graph this morning. In early May, it was $60 a barrel. That's Brent crude. Went close to $80 a barrel recently. That's a big move. That's what's a third.
It went up a third in less than two months and then came crashing down as soon as the ceasefire became apparent. Current price, $67.85, which on the day is actually up just over
1%. Natural gas prices are... flat uh bitcoin it was below 100 uh two days ago it's now 107 and 173 another reason why trump is so so happy he loves his crypto and we know why the south african 10-year bond yield very very good news for the country 9.92 percent and the u.s 10-year i think it's about seven week low was around about 427 428 now 4.31 percent ahead of powell giving his speech and yeah s&p 500 futures they're flat
6146 for the september futures so that's that what shares caught your eye today on the jc up and down please skulk Yeah, I think I'm going to go sector specific because it's sort of an inverse. It was an inverse of what we've seen yesterday. Yesterday, we had this massive, massive retracement. And it was close to a 3% rise in financial stocks because we had this massive movement in the RAND. RAND improved as well as dollar weakness. So that was good for financials.
And the flip side was our resources got hammered with some of these... commodity prices retracing. Today, I don't want to say it was the inverse because, I mean, the resource index only recovered, let's call it five basis points. That's not really a recovery. But the financial index, they took a beating today, close to 1.5% down today with the likes of some of these banks. Standard Bank down 3%. First Rand, that was positive. Other trading, Updata.
APSA was down 2.2%. So. I thought it was an interesting day for the bank, sort of inverse of what we've seen yesterday. And then the PGMs. I mean, PGMs were still fairly strong this morning, as you mentioned. Prices are still trading higher now, but you can see the last few hours there was a bit of a retracement. The likes of the Volterra is down 3.1%. Impala, Platinum, down 1.5%. So, as mentioned, just a funny, funny day all around. Big movements.
and definitely moving in in these directions yeah valterra as you say down over three percent and that was after a mining max article where the ceo said he thought the prospects for the platinum price and other platinum group metals was uh pretty good sorry i wasn't listening i was listening but i was doing something else that should become apparent in the moment i i i hang on your every word uh scott believe me i can repeat it you have 10 minutes Netcore down 6.5. What is that? Next story?
Why is Netcore down 6.5? I actually came out with results. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. Netbank was the only company that actually it's sort of always interesting because I looked at the results this morning and I was like, well, did it look too bad? But it's always interesting when a company bring out results just as the market closed. You need to go and look. Oh, you mean it was last night? Okay. Yeah, yeah.
between the lines but again i don't think it's uh it's expensive it didn't look uh too bad but uh yeah mr market thought otherwise they didn't like it didn't like the results at all okay on the upside we've got a disc up 2.1 and the founder and ceo of diskim just thought you know why not give my two sons a nice little media present 6.8 billion 25 stake in the company which is i don't know what the the reason for that is whether it's for tax reasons
or whether he wants them to take over his position joint ceos or something i don't know no no they're not involved that's a nice nice nice so he's got three sons so so the one son sold he's he's already involved so he's got his shares and his is is is on the board yeah um But these two sons, they're not... on the board yet. And actually, now they will need to be looked at because I think it's like something at 25%.
Yeah, it's close to 25% Sheldon that's now been split up between these two brothers. So that's a chunky. I mean, yeah, I need to go and speak to my dad. I need to get in. Yeah, for goodness sake, it's about time. Come on now. Definitely. Do you have to do these stupid podcasts every week? I mean, come on. Lindsay, I love you. Go on, man. What can people do on a Wednesday, you know, 5 o'clock? Do you want me to give you a list? Having a chat.
Belcom was up 2%, Advertik up 2%, Lighthouse Capital up 1.5%. So nothing apart from discounting me of any interest. Okay, Skalk. So what are we expecting? The market to take a breather, a shock to come from the Middle East, a shock to come from the tariffs. What are we going to be talking about next week, do you suppose? It could be all of the above. It could be all new news. You know, what we say in Afrikaans, splinternevenmulukat, which is translated to brand new trouble. Brand new trouble.
Well, I hope not. It's always fun as a broadcaster to talk about bad news, but I really hope not. We need to talk about good news. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well done, Scott.
find yourself something to do i noticed that the nights are getting longer the days are getting longer in the southern hemisphere the opposite over here and so go and spend that extra couple of minutes and and do something productive sculpt glow is a portfolio manager psg wealth old oak in cape town and that was the five 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. And since we are critically thinking human beings, these views are always subject to change, revision, and revision. and rethinking at any time. Please do not hold us to them in perpetuity.