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 as always on a Wednesday, I speak to Skulk Lowe, Portfolio Manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town. It's a shame that we're on a Wednesday night, Skulk. If we were on a Thursday night, we could speak about the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan.
the meeting between Xi and Trump and all sorts of other things, but we can't. We can just look forward to them and speculate, can't we? Yeah, exactly. I think somebody asked me yesterday what to expect over the next few days, and I think my short answer is expect the unexpected. It's just so volatile. No, okay, let's take the easy one. I mean, it's a straight announcement. Interest rate enhancement, quarter of a percentage, I think that's pretty much in the bag.
We will find the definites in a few hours' time. But as it currently stands, if you look at the CME effect too, they're talking about 98% probability that we're going to see the quarter of a percentage rate cut in, it's called, a few hours' time. I do think that 98% could just be made 100%, because I find it actually strange that we're still seeing a 2% probability that we'll... We're going to see it unchanged. The rest, I think, is especially Trump and Xi Jinping.
I mean, if you look at the past, let's say to this tomorrow, it'd be three weeks ago when Trump had that tweet. Yeah, you're right. Tweet where he said, well, we need to slap China with a hell of a lot more. It was in retaliation to the rare earth policy of China. In other words, just withholding rare earth exports to the rest of the world. It wasn't just the United States, but the United States, obviously, the most reliant upon Chinese rare earths for its various technological applications.
But that was the retaliation. Trump woke up and saw this and says, oh, 100%, get on with it. He passes it on to his team and then he has a press conference or something. In the Oval Office, that's the way he works. He just conjures up numbers. But then, of course, we hear, oh, there's been a trade deal being done already before the meeting with Xi, and so it goes on. He's just messing with us, Skulk. He's messing with us. No, he is.
And we know that after that, I think it was a week later, yeah, it was a week later, which is now a week and a half ago, he actually... tweeted and he said and yes again right tweeted he told the world that um you know the the trade war with china is definitely escalating and then less than a week later these two are best buds i mean trump just says well you know what we're so close to a a deal and things are really looking good and we've seen the market since then i mean suddenly that the
dollars improving. I mean, the gold price, as I saw it, is behind. I mean, and most of the other precious metal prices as well. And it's just, what problems? There was no problems between the US and China. And it's, before you go on, there's a new book out from a reporter, journalist from ABC News in the United States. Now, ABC is one of the fake news channels, according to Trump. Now, He famously said to this chap, he says, you have hate in your heart.
During a question and answer session, he singled him out and said that. But this chap said that I've known him since 1994. And we've actually had really cordial relations. But he feels as though he has to say this sort of thing in front of people, but quietly, straight after this rather nasty altercation. He said to him, how's it going? How's the family? You know, maybe we should get together and that sort of thing.
He's completely inconsistent, this Trump fellow, as we've said on many occasions. But it really hit home last night. I think the book is called Retribution or something. It's about all the people he's gone after in his second term. And I think I might buy it, Skulk. It'll be another one gathering dust on my bookshelf the next time we speak. Yeah, December holidays are coming along and I always look for nice things to read. That might just be something I'll read as well.
A client phoned me after that and his question was, Looking at Trump, is he mad? Oh yeah. Is he stupid? Oh yeah. Which is absolutely brilliant. And I, my answer was yes. Yes to all three? I think it might be all three. It could be. You can't achieve what he's achieving and how he achieves certain things without having method to your, and pun intended, madness. I mean, it's, it's. It's unbelievable what's happening. And my second reply to him was, you know, we're sitting on the 29th of October.
And in three months' time, we will be exactly one year into his four-year term. And it's already murmuring that he's going to be the beautiful president that's actually going to be able to run for third. This is what Steve Bannon says. I don't know if you subscribe to The Economist, but Steve Bannon has had a lengthy interview with the editor-in-chief of The Economist. And he says, without doubt, he's going to be running for a third term in 2028. And he's one of his chief advisors.
And that's another thing that this ABC chap said. He said, during a very important meeting of the cabinet, when they were all trying to persuade him to do something he didn't want to do, he said, get Bannon on the line. He put Bannon on speaker. And Bannon called, he called Yelensky that effing something. And he said, OK, so we're not going to do this for Ukraine because of what Bannon said. And Bannon says, 2028, it's going to happen, Skunk. It's going to be attempted, let's put it that way.
Yeah, I mean... It's so many things can happen. I mean, Trump is not young. I mean, there's so many things that could happen. But just the pure thought of having another four years. I mean, we're talking about, I still need to see us get getting through this next three years and three months. I mean, because this past nine months, 10 months, it's just been crazy. What's happened? I mean, the amount of seesawing that the markets, yeah, I still stick to it. Expect the unexpected.
We've seen what oil price did a week ago when Trump just turned around to China and said, well, just please sanction these two oil producers, these Russian oil producers. And just a small fact of the matter, these two oil producers, Chinese, Russian oil producers produce around about 5% of the total globe's oil. Yes. And we saw the reaction of the world price. I think the world price that day was something like 5% or 6% up. And then everything just sort of murmured down.
Everything was fine again for the past week. I think we are in for a crazy time. And I can't tell you. I mean, if you ask me where we're going to sit just at the end of this week, I literally can't tell you. I literally can't tell you. Make sure that your portfolio is well diversified for both actions because, man, we're going to be in. And then add into this mix, the next few days, I mean, I think Wednesday, today alone, we've got Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta who's going to be reporting.
And then followed on Thursday by Amazon and Apple. Oh, my goodness me. These firms that I just mentioned make up 25% of the S&P 500. So literally in the next, let's call it 24, 48 hours, we're going to have the biggest firms, which is... Have they guided? Have they guided satisfactorily? Or do they do the guidance a little bit closer to the actual results than they do in South Africa? Yeah, they did.
And these days... I don't want to say it's very similar to 2000, where the guides are a lot less on earnings. Back in 2000, it was more to do with how many computers have we sold and how many Windows packages have we sold. And it was more that the revenue will ultimately be converted into earnings. Now, they're talking about what's the CapEx predictions for 2026 in terms of what's going to be your... AI-related CapEx.
And you want to take a guess, just these companies and they have Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon, what are they combined expected or projected? CapEx is going to be for AI-related spend. I would say probably each must be spending $100 billion, something like that. Yeah, that was actually great, and it's very close to being spot on. All three of them, all four of them are projected to spend $420 billion on AI-related CapEx. And this year, that spend was $360 billion for these four companies.
So it's not going to stop. And this is just, I mean, one of my colleagues sat in the morning meeting this morning when we discussed this. And just, I know he's going to listen to this and he's going to know exactly what I'm talking about. But he must be the guy that went over to something like WhatsApp, the latest of any human being on the face of this earth. But I mean, his words were, I just can't comprehend these. And just think of these, how are these money ultimately going to be made?
How are we going to justify 420 billion? In other words, they're going to have to increase. It's not just their own profits, but it's also the GDP of the nation in which they do business, i.e. the United States of America mainly. I saw a very good article about it and I didn't understand it, but it was all to do.
where GDP would have to grow a certain amount in order to justify the amount of money that's being spent on AI in the CapEx field, and also the amount of electricity that's got to be generated. And will it be the biggest waste of time? What did Meta do, the metaverse? Wasn't that a giant waste of time? Again, it sort of drifted off. Luckily, the headlines became AI headlines rather than failure headlines for a previous project. But yes, you're right, Skalk, 420 billion.
And it's fear of missing out, of course. If one is spending 100 billion, the other one's got to spend 150 billion in order to poach more people. Have you seen how much money these people are being offered? 100 million sign-on fees, that sort of thing. It's a crazy, crazy, crazy environment. And to your questions, did this excite, you know, after this announcement on the CapEx, after the announcement, Amazon's share rose 1%, Microsoft shares gained 2%. No results, no, nothing.
It's just, there's a general optimism. Suddenly, it's back. So, yes, you've got this very weird political, geopolitical environment. where we're currently finding ourselves, but also a very, very interesting valuation scenario. Because the markets are still very much driven by these AI-related type of companies.
There's one thing I would like to say, because we've been rambling on about money and AI, etc. And we've got to wait for their results next week, if they disappoint, which I'm sure they won't. then the risk is to the downside. But let's not forget about that. Let's look at the Fed tonight, because that's the big one. That's the first step. They'll cut rates. Everybody knows that.
But afterwards, if there is some kind of hesitation about the second cut, this is the penultimate Fed meeting of the year, by the way. There's another one coming up, obviously, before year end. If there is any hesitation that there might be a rate cut for the last meeting of the year, then the risk in the market is to the downside scale, isn't it? I mean, it's price for perfection at the moment with the S&P futures 6,938 at an all-time record high.
And I saw a couple of weeks ago people say, maybe we could see 7,000 in early 2026 for the S&P. It's just like the gold price. We might see it at 4,000 when it was 3,800 or something. It's that sort of prediction. It's now almost there. So the slightest chink in the armor of the bulls, and we're going to come crashing down. Just briefly, though. Yeah, it's interesting. Let's first see who's going to hit that 7,000 mark first, gold or the S&P 500. Gold's been fun, hasn't it?
Yeah, it's been a fun year. But local front as well. I mean, back to markets and... I would say not today's movements, but I think today's news. It's this upcoming listing of Optasia. Lindsay, you don't know how many times I need to pay you. The Disney movie reference. That's it. That's it. I mean, for the listeners out there, Lindsay, I think we chatted about when you mentioned Optasia. I think your first question was, it sounds like a Disney movie. And now I can't get rid of it. And this week.
I can't remember. I think it might have been Monday or Tuesday. Yeah, it was Monday. There was an announcement both for Aptasia and Astoria. And I'm sitting at this, and when I said Astoria are going to delist from the JSE and Aptasia is going to be listing on the it sounds like two Disney movies now, not just one. But, I mean, talking about the one Disney movie, and it's currently a Disney movie story because, I mean, we all know that Michael Jordan is one of the largest shareholders.
and also can be involved on the management side. So I've got great respect. I think he's one of our, let's call it, our leading intellectual capitalists in South Africa. I mean, he's just phenomenal. It's really a 360. I mean, we know a few years ago he was the CEO.
of FNB and then he eventually said he's finished and he started things like Optasia and what was it Bank Zero and this week we've a lot past few weeks we didn't just have there's a story about Optasia we know the Saka Technologies they they bought Bank Zero for 1.1 billion rand the you know more fintech stories we've had old mutual I think earlier this week They mentioned that they're buying 10X for, I think, 2 billion rand, or 85% at least of it, but it's pretty much a buy.
And then NetBank, they bought that at Kauka. And yesterday, the announcement came up, two days ago, the announcement came, there we go, F&B just bought 20.1% of this Optasia for 4.7 billion.
So, I mean... going from they clearly knew whom they they work with i mean this uh this is not just a great maybe they've been given not privileged information but uh pertinent information another p word pertinent not privileged from from the person concerned sounds like it could be possible yeah without breaking any rules of course no no no for sure but but remember they they know most probably know michael erdogan better than any any any other company out there i mean if If...
If it was the CEO, naturally the companies should know them better. But be that as it may, they've now bought over 20% before the listing. Listing expecting on the 4th of November. It's been postponed. I think it was a little bit earlier. But now we're going to... And Michael Jordan had a tweet today where we actually... And I'm going to read this. Optasia order book is now covered multiple times at 19 Rand. The IPO pricing and allocation are expected to be released on Thursday.
So by tomorrow, for the listeners out there that don't know what I just read, what this tweet basically says is by tomorrow, you will know if you applied for Optasia shares, you will know what allocation has been given to you. And then on the 4th of November, it will make its listing.
But by the looks of it, when somebody says, you know, the order book has been covered, multiple times do not expect if you put in a hundred thousand rand to buy up to your shares probably get five yeah exactly yeah your chances of getting your hundred thousand rand will be really really so very very you know what it is i mean obviously a great pedigree management wise a good product as far as i know but also the complete dearth of new listings that has been on the jsc
for so long and with the markets doing what they're doing you fund managers are awash with cash skulk yeah no it's um it's it's it's actually optimistic i'm glad to see this i mean because we've we've been focused on the companies that's deal listing on the the woes of the jse i mean we've been talking about the net foreign sellers which we still see uh on on on the jse but but We've been so focused on... the net foreign sellers. Well, the first step is there.
Last Friday, we've been removed from the gray list. And clearly already, you can start seeing, not talking about just Optasia, you can start seeing some interest again coming towards the JSC. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more people. What was the other company? It was SAB. What was that? The bottling company? The Coca-Cola bottling company. Coca-Cola bottling. That's going to be a secondary listing on the JSE as well. That is going to be big.
I think they're talking about a $44 billion listing. Naturally, it's going to be secondary, but still, this is positive for the JSE. Be there, Sidmaye. I'm going to look at this. I think I would like to get a David in, but David mentioned the other day, he said, well, this might be a good stack, sort of quote unquote.
And for the listeners out there that don't know what we're talking about, this was sort of an analogy that was used back in the days where you sort of could apply for shares and immediately win the list. Sell them. You sell them again and you're trying to make a bit of a profit. This could just be, I mean, you just mentioned, And this could just be. be a company, it's got the right buzzwords. It's got fintech. It's got AI.
And their clients, or they call it their business partners, are the likes of the MTNs, the Vodacoms. And also on the banking side, they've got Standard Banks and now F&B. My first point was, I think we had this discussion when we talked about the Disney movie for the first time. I would not be surprised. If their business partners say, wait a minute, you can actually use AI to look at the credit scores and sort of mitigate any possible bad debts.
I mean, this could be a good company to buy and put into a MTN or into a F&B. Well, the first step has been made. F&B has already said, we'll take a fifth of the company. And I would not be surprised if we see some action. going forward in the next few weeks. It's got all the ingredients, hasn't it? It's got a scarcity of new companies coming to the JSC. It's got the management we've spoken about.
It's doing all the right things at the right time with the right products and with the right management. And goodness me, it's going to fly, Skulk. If the market conditions are as they are at the moment, it'll fly. On the other hand, it could be one of those things where you look back and you say, That was when the market peaked. We knew when that Disney movie listed. That signalled the end of it. Sorry, Michael, if you're listening.
OK, let's have a look at some numbers now, because we've been rambling on like a couple of old fishwives. Here we go. Dollar Rand, lovely. It's going to break the big figure of 17 very soon, and from the wrong direction, it's going to go 17 to 16. right direction for south africa in my opinion 1711 at the moment though the dollar round euro round is 1993. uh euro parting like it's 1993. the euro dollar or not on the other hand uh euro dollar 116.50 which is virtually unchanged pound 132 32.
um okay over to the gold price i know this gold price i've been watching every day And it was two Fridays ago that it hit 4,391, came crashing down on the Monday and got to 42.50. Excuse me. Then the next day it went up to 4,398, within a whisker of 4,400 on my screen anyway. And then, since then, in a period of about eight days, it fell to a low of just above 3,900. So let's say that this is close to a $500 fall in a 10-day period, Skulk. How's that? I mean, that is incredible, isn't it?
If you're a gold bull, not nice. There was a great meme. I need to tell you this, Liz. It's a great, great meme. It's Matthew McConaughey sitting on this photo, and he's, like, all buffed up, and he's shiny. I mean, even his skin is golden, and he's got this massive smile.
And then it says... the gold what is it uh what is it uh gold traders when gold hit four thousand dollar on the 7th of october and then it next thing is this bleak it looks like he's gonna die any second he's white he's pale he's thin he just looked like he's gonna die any second don't tell me it's gold traders when gold hit four thousand on this date yeah exactly i thought it was brilliant and such a stunning way of of explaining exactly where we're sitting ah gold price four
thousand dollars again i think four thousand and nine i'm going through the numbers four thousand and nine at one and a half a cent and i just wanted to just add before we before we forget i mean you mentioned the the currencies and it's a it's a it's a stunning point you're making i mean it's going to drop to the wrong side basically improving from 17 to the 16 levels pretty soon i mean we it seems like that's sort of a... No brainer, it's going to happen. But interesting one.
You know, I like my data. We've had three quarters in a row now where the rent improved against the US dollar. That's a long time since you've been able to say that. That's it. The last time we've seen that was in 2020. And remember why that's significant. In 2020, we had the run-up to the junk status. We've been downgraded to junk status. That was March, I think March 2020. And remember, straight after we've actually been downgraded, before that is called a downgrade, we've just...
Every single quarter, we've seen the RAND lose ground against the US dollar. Every single quarter. So I try to go back. I think you didn't see any three quarters in a row. So literally, this is the longest positive run for the RAND in at least five years. And if you strip out that three quarters, then this has been the best run we've seen in the RAND. pretty much for 10 years. So this is a great moment. It's a great moment.
And as we sit here, 29th of October, into the fourth quarter, we're again stronger for this quarter. I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to jinx it. Too late. I can't see. I can't see any four quarter for the past decade in a row where we've seen the round improve. So here we go. Here we go. Fingers crossed. I don't know how you hijacked me on the giving the commodity prices to an analysis on the Rand and other currencies. But now you've got me going because, you know, I know you're sensitive.
You know, as you get to a certain age, Scott, you become sensitive about your age. And I can sense that you're doing the same. Before you know it, you'll be buying a convertible. You're talking about a midlife crisis. And opening another gym membership. But if somebody says to you, Scott, I'll call you, by the way. and you'll say to them, I'm approaching 50, but from the wrong side. That's always a good joke. Yeah, I might just use that one. You must use that.
I've nicked it from somebody else, the great Barry Humphries, the comedian. But anyway, stop interrupting me. The platinum price is 16.05, which is up 1.3%. Palladium is up 2.1%. to 14.48. Now let's have a look at some other commodities because they've been fascinating. 64.85 is the current Brent crude oil price which is down 1.2 percent. 60.64 is West Texas crude which is down 1.1 percent. What am I talking about? Brent crude oil is 65.16. The screen has just refreshed.
Delete the last 30 seconds. 65.16 for Brent Crudeall. Up. 1.1 percent and west texas 60.79 which is up 1.1 percent as well the copper price is now 5.24 per pound up 1.9 percent on the day and it's in a very tight supply demand balance and because of a an incident at a prominent mine they're losing two to three hundred thousand tons of production. So that's tipped the market a bit, and it's been going like this for two weeks now. So looking pretty good.
Look at any copper chart, and you'll see that this is in a bull market. It's almost paying it's catching onto the coattails of the precious metals. It's up over 21% for the past 12 months. That is big. You didn't mention iron ore. I mean, iron ore is an interesting one because people I mean, I've been in quite a few interviews.
this this past it's got a few months where a lot of people just sort of got the view that that iron oil prices will be dwindling downwards and they were sort of right until july it did go from run about the 105 ish dollars per ton um to just below 94 dollars which which people forecasted but slowly slowly it caught the woman again it's right back from july up to now it's back close to its highest for the year, back to close to $106 per ton.
We saw the trading update coming from Kumba yesterday, and that had a really, really positive effect on the share price. And so it's, yes, we've had this conversation. The precious metals kicked up. It was first gold, and then shortly after that, we had its little brothers. That ran. And then by April, people realized, wait a minute, there's more things that shine.
um and and there there went platinum palladium rhodium those prices copper just to to medley medley went it went up and still going upwards and now copper's got proper fundamentals though you can say gold gold and silver and you know their shine and their stores of value and everything but copper is part of the whole ai uh tech revolution behind the scenes and uh There's the demand equation. The demand side of the equation in copper is very compelling for any potential bull.
Anyway, we've done that one. South African 10-year bond scale, 8.84%. Goodness me. If you're talking about foreigners coming in and buying equities, they must have been buying bonds. That was 11.09% in early April, 11.09% the yield. It's fallen to 8.84%, which is an inverse relationship between the yield. and the actual bond price, the bond price through the roof in South Africa, and also in the United States to a lesser extent, the U.S. 10-year bond yield is 3.999%.
Now, my trade of the day, Skulk, for when we next meet, is sell the U.S. bond market because it's all baked in. Everything that the Fed is going to say tonight, Jerome Powell, soon-to-be ex-chair, is going to spout on. But I think that that yield will rise. In other words, the bond price will fall. So I'm a seller of the US 10-year and will work on the yield of, let's say, 4%. The yield will be higher the next time we speak. S&P 500 futures, I told you earlier on, it was 6,938.
So I'll have to take that because my screen's not working. 6,939.75 to be precise, up to 0.2%. Nothing will happen for the next three or four hours. Okay, I think that's about it apart from Bitcoin. Skullclaw, I've got Bitcoin trading at something. It's been down to 108 up to 125 in the last two, three months. Currently just below 112,000, down 2.5%. Somebody recklessly said you'll never see it below 100,000 again. Cue the big sell-off, I reckon. JSC Indices, if you would.
Or have you fallen asleep? No, there you are. Go on. Where were we? No, it's just thinking about your opinion, looking at a bond retracement or bond yield retracement, basically a drop in the prices. That is an interesting one because I do share it. And for listeners out there, if you want to extrapolate, if you want to look at this, and let's say you're 100% right. then you will see the dollar much weaker. So that brings in that dollar-rand.
If the rand even does nothing, we will see it go to the 16-rand levels in a pretty short period of time. So the dollar will be weakening if that's the case. If you've got the viewpoint that we're going to see long bond yields increase and the dollar weaken, that suddenly brings the gold price.
again into play again because we know that there's a big big inverse correlation there as well weaker dollar higher uh bond yields usually a higher higher gold price so interesting one i do agree i would agree with your thought so one we could maybe chat about again in the next few weeks and see we certainly will but i think it's if i was doing anything i'd be buying um i'd be buying relatively short-term puts in the u.s bond market both the 10-year and the 30-year that is just my
recommendation my thoughts certainly not that of psg wealth old oak uh let's do the indices indices yeah and value traded if you would jse all share close to that 110 371 points that was up 0.5 of a percentage resources again recovered today 2.81 percent up while industrials just just kept itself in the red today was down five basis points uh financials after a fantastic day yesterday day.
They took a bit of a breather today, down 85 basis points, while the SA property stocks, they were down 0.4 of a percentage. Value trade in the market, not the most active day. Yesterday, we had a $36 billion day. Today, only $23 billion. I'm not going to jinx this because Lindsay and myself have been talking about this last year. We would high-five each other. Actually, we'll give ourselves a high 10 if we see a $23 billion day. Quiet a day today, but still.
keeping itself way above the 20 billion mark for today. Finally, very finally, you asked if he's mad, you asked if he's stupid, you asked if he's brilliant. His name is Donald J. Trump. I sent you, or actually I may have not sent it to you, but there's something called the Lincoln Project, which I follow on X. And they came up with something that's rather interesting, and that was a video of Trump with the new Japanese Prime Minister. I don't know if you've seen this.
But it says here, the Lincoln Project, I suggest you follow them.
They're not exactly your big friends of Trump. They say, watch this video, then ask yourself why in less than one year Trump has had two annual exams, taken at least one cognitive test that we know of, been hiding large bruises on his hands, had an MRI for something last week, exhibited facial drooping, has severely swollen ankles the size of stovepipes and walks around aimless like a lost... blind dog you see this video and he's he's being escorted to inspect some japanese troops
and she stops and he carries on walking and he's walking from side to side he salutes and then wanders off and she sort of looks at him and and you know puts her hands out and says where where has he gone where is he going he just wanders off it's very very it's it's it's funny but it's sad in the same way. Because his pills have worn off, you see. It's really bad. I'll send it to you. Please do. The Lincoln Project on X. Skullclaw is a portfolio manager at PSG Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town.
And that was a very long five o'clock, but very enjoyable 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, organization, 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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