You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the five o'clock shadow.
And as always on a Wednesday, I speak to Skulk Lowe, Portfolio Manager at PSG
Wealth Old Oak in Cape Town.
Now, the screen of mine, which I normally rely on, Skulk, has gone down suddenly
just before you came on.
So you're going to be my eyes and ears today.
But one thing I did see was USCPI coming in slightly higher for the month of May
than the month of April.
2.4% versus 2.3%, but below the 2.5% expected.
Things are very, very quiet at the moment, aren't they?
Yeah, we're going to try and find stuff to talk about today.
But yeah, I think inflation is not really one that, like you mentioned,
it's a slight miss.
The business confidence for South Africa today also came in a bit lower than
expected.
So in general, but in general, not a lot.
happening in markets, unless you're in PGMs or gold.
Yeah, that has been a story.
And it was about two weeks ago, I think it was, maybe three, that suddenly we had a
day, Skulk,
and you'll probably remember it, when we had the actual platinum price in US dollar
terms up around about 10%.
And the JSE listed PGM producers all took off.
And I said, that is sometimes the sign of a market trend changing.
You get the initial reaction, it settles down a bit, and then it goes again.
And it's done that, hasn't it?
It seems to me to be behaving quite nicely.
I'm not calling it bull market, but I've certainly been very encouraged by certain
days of the last two, three weeks.
Yeah, I mean, not calling it the bull market yet.
Yet we've actually had a fantastic, fantastic run.
In these platinum stocks, I mean, we're looking at Valterra, Altamplatz, currently
53%
up year-to-date.
Impala Platinum up 70% year-to-date.
And Northern Platinum up 79% year-to-date.
So, I mean, this is the type of returns you and I spoke about only coming from
gold counters.
And while we're at it, I mean, we'll touch on the last one, the biggest one first.
You know, gold feels up.
79% year-to-date.
Durban Riddipoer deep 51%.
79%?
79%.
Harmony up 75%. And then a smaller count is Durban Riddipoer deep 51%
and Pan African Resources came out with a trading update today, 36%.
But here's the star.
I mean, since the start of 2025,
Anglo Gold is up 96%. percent So, how's them apples?
I mean, yeah, we know that.
That is amazing.
And, of course, you're not tempted to say 79% in one year for Goldfields, 75% for
Harmony in one year,
and it's not even half a year gone yet.
Thank you.
I'm taking that, and we'll all go away for a couple of months.
But you're not going to do that.
No, I'm not going to do that.
I feel a little bit on the wild side.
Definitely not going to do that.
because we heard i mean and this is typically what will happen i mean these
these counters as i mean when a company like anglo gold
pretty much double up um in in let's call it a little bit more than than well less
than six months
then they will start to attract attention and they will be included in indices like
russell 3000 russell
1000 russell 2000 the russell mid cap in this index because that's the announcement
that came i mean this
is We've been sort of rumored that Anglo Gold will be included.
And, yeah, today the actual announcement came through that after the market close
on the 27th of June,
so effectively that changes will then take place.
That's a weekend, if I'm not mistaken.
So that will be the 30th of June.
Effectively, 30th of June, Anglo Gold will now be included in those indices.
And why I say it's sort of the worst kept secret.
And that's one of the reasons why the Anglican Gold, in my opinion, outperformed
the likes of the
Goldfields in harmony with that much.
But no, I'm not selling that.
But back to your PGMs.
They definitely I mean, we've often had this conversation, and for the listeners
that weren't participating in that podcast,
we often had this conversation about the deficit, or let's call it the
The demand that's outstripping the supply by quite a handsome margin.
We've seen it in 2023.
And when I say we, that's data provided by the World Platinum Council.
And then last year, it came out again.
And it was quite a handsome deficit.
The demand seriously outstripped the supply in 2024.
And you and I are still having this conversation.
and say, well, What the hell is going on?
I mean, if there's such a big difference, why is the PGM price so distressed?
And yeah, a few weeks ago, we saw the updates that came out from the World
Platinum Council, again,
stating that we're going to see a pretty similar deficit for 2025.
And I think it's just sort of now caught up.
I think the market now realized, wait a minute.
I mean, even President Trump.
came out, and I think this is one of the biggest reasons for the bromance that sort
of went south,
is the fact that he now said, well, EV is not going to be the be-all and end-all,
where we still got,
as he mentioned, the beautiful grunt.
I mean, people, you still want the combustion engines, there's going to be
the hybrids,
and there's going to be some time before we're going to be fully integrated.
towards the EV side.
And there goes the platinum.
Platinum prices, palladium prices went.
But another thing I thought interesting, I mean, when I read the report of the World
Platinum Council,
they actually referred to the jewellery market that suddenly picked up.
Yes, because it used to be, I can remember this, and this is against me now, I bought
a wedding ring.
when platinum was $1,650 an ounce.
And I thought I was getting a bit of a bargain, you know, fast forward.
And I'm not scrapping that thing.
But anyway, yes, it is.
If you look at it relative to gold, it's for nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly the case.
I mean, we're going to give away our age, but, I mean, you're 100% right.
I mean, there was a time, you know, we know gold is king.
I mean.
But there was a time where, you know, when you look at this specifically in the
jewelry market, where there was sort of a premium.
People tend to say, well,
I actually prefer a platinum ring rather than having a gold ring.
I mean, when you turn the clock back, let's call it 2008.
I'm actually now on the graph.
March 2008, the platinum price.
and i just took the fourth of march i mean i don't know why but fourth of march
platinum price closed at two thousand two
hundred and twenty dollars per ounce on that same day uh the gold price um that
was oh two
thousand let's call it 2002
2020. uh the the gold price was trading pretty much half that level less than off
that level 964 dollars per ounce so and So today, that's inverse.
I mean, the gold price is pretty much trading three times.
So when I read this World Platinum Council report,
and they referred to suddenly there's quite a big pickup in the jewelry market,
it hit me, bang.
I mean,
if you need to pay three times the price to buy a gold ring or gold necklace
compared to
a platinum ring, some younger… People hot under the colour,
ready to get engaged, might just be enticed to rather go for the platinum.
And also the white metals.
I mean, gold is great and everything and will always be, but there's a sort of a
cool factor as well, isn't there, for a platinum ring?
I don't know the name platinum.
It just seems to me slightly rarer, slightly more unusual than the normal gold
band,
and therefore that extends to the rest of the jewellery market, I would have
thought.
But that's just me being a...
being somebody who actually did it all those years ago.
Well, you did it.
You did it.
And now people know why you did it, because, I mean, platinum was trading at a
much, much higher price.
It was sort of a much bigger thing to have a platinum piece of jewelry compared to
gold.
And even today, I mean, I can't remember which bank they had.
I think it was a black card, and then you've got your silver card, your
gold card and and then the upgrade from that is your platinum card yeah and why is
that the
case because i mean gold gold price is three times the price of platinum but yeah
i think that's that's that's i think why
why are we seeing the moves that we're seeing and and i i might i'm yeah
You never want to say, you know, This is now the start of something big.
But I do get the feeling that this might be the start of a longer bull run for
platinum because it actually
stayed under.
If you look at the platinum price itself, I mean, if we turn the clock back 10 years
ago, 2015,
it was trading $950 per ounce.
Up to, let's call it two weeks ago, three weeks ago, it was trading around about
$950,
$1,000.
Ten years, it did nothing.
I think, watch this space, Lindsay, watch this space.
What I like to look at, Scott, when it comes to something like this, when you get
alerted to suddenly the re-emergence,
the awakening of security,
whether it be the price of a commodity or the price of the company that digs that
commodity out the ground,
I like to look at its personality.
Does it go on and on and on?
In other words, It goes down for ages and it just grinds you into the dust and then
suddenly
uplifts you and goes on onto the upside for ages.
Is platinum like that?
I know if you get a currency like the dollar, the dollar grinds itself higher,
grinds itself lower,
and it can go on for years.
What about platinum?
Maybe we should have a look at that.
I'm trying to find Valterra, which is the former Anglo-American platinum,
and trying to see what the long-term history of that is.
Because it's quite important.
It's almost like...
no financial market anthropology go back and have a look and see what the
personality of this particular
share group is and that's over to you now because you've got the screen in front of
you that works absolutely
i've got the screen in front of me you're lucky you're lucky on that one yeah i mean
um valterra
trading uh you know today i mean closed at what was it 820 821 one rant levels.
Pretty much the levels it...
traded, if I pull the graph back,
the levels that we've seen in 2023.
So we haven't seen a massive movement.
When we actually just go back another year, 2022, I mean, Valtteri and Platz,
they actually closed at what we're looking at.
It was 2,520 rand.
So, I mean, just to show you So we, okay, that was...
But I mean, if you take that period, let's call it 2021 to 2022,
it was trading more or less 2000 Rand.
And today it's trading at 120 Rand.
So when you look at the share price over 10 years, it's pretty much done nothing.
Which means that there's no interest.
And if it starts going into indices, then people have to have it.
I mean, it's like the Anglo-Goldish-Anti-Russell 3000 story on
June the 27th.
People are already buying.
They're not waiting for the 28th or the 27th and saying, right, in we go.
They're already getting in.
That's the case, isn't it?
It's not front running.
It's just prudent management, I suppose.
Yeah, and also, I mean, the heart actually carries an index like the JSE.
Because when we look at something like gold three years ago, four years ago, it
didn't carry a weight of,
and I understand.
to be corrected but i think it was three to four percent the total weight in in the
jse all share um
today it's it's it's most probably close to 13 i mean and and every day we see
these type of movements we see
great movements in the jse i saw i saw a tweet i want to sort of go and confirm
that lindsay i don't know if you've spoken to
one of the other commentators mentioned something similar.
But I saw a tweet over the weekend
The commentator mentioned that the JSE
Allshare has now outperformed the S&P 500 over a five-year
period.
And that will be mighty interesting because I know the
S&P 500 has had a phenomenal five years.
and for the JSE to outperform the S&P 500, I think...
I would like to go and test that commentator's quote.
But what
I can't really take away is the fact that the JSC has been doing well because we've
had some of these
resource counters, gold counters, that's now grown from a 3% to a 13% position.
Don't be surprised if we see a similar trajectory when we see things in the PGM
market because
we're the largest palladium.
produce in the world with the largest rhodium produced in the world with the
second largest platinum produced in
the world this will really be good for the jse as well if This, let's call it, trend
continues.
Let's hope so, Scott.
Suddenly we're getting excited again.
And I'm sure the Treasury Department in South Africa is starting to get rather
excited as well about this sort of
thing.
Because this is hugely important for the finances of the Republic of South Africa.
Because it's not our biggest export, the PGMs.
I think coal holds that, or iron or something.
But anyway, it's right up there.
Certainly more important than gold once it gets going and the price gets up, I think.
For sure.
I totally agree.
Okay.
What else are we talking about?
I'm talking about a couple of sets of results out today, Pan-African Resources
and Multi-Choice.
Either of those flit across your screen or too small for you to get excited about at
the moment?
I can't let an opportunity to talk about any gold counters go past me.
So, yeah, Pan-African Resources, small little company.
I mean, when you look at their production, and they...
They run about, let's call it, 100,000 ounces per six months.
They came out full year.
Trading stayed more than just a financial year in states that they had.
They actually produced 197 ounces of gold for this
period in June.
June.
And that's going to be shy because when we looked at
they forecast and trading updates or operational updates,
they guided that they should be mining about 205,000, 215,000 ounces.
And it's the fact why we're seeing Pan African also lagging,
let's call it the other four mines quite a bit,
which is disappointing because they do have a very low all-in cost, all-in
sustainable cost.
When you look at the all-in sustainable cost, for the full year 2025, it's
estimated that it will be between, you know,
$1,550 and $1,575 per ounce, and that's low.
And they also talked about when they actually mentioned their forecast, for
2026,
they're expecting it to decline, this all-insustainable cost,
to $1,475 to $1,525 per ounce.
Now, that's crazy.
I mean I mean Let's take the upper band and make it $1,525.
It's coming to trading $3,300 odd.
I mean, that's crazy to think how these mines are pumping cash.
And the mines, usually, or gold mines, usually, let's call it companies,
that was trading at very, very high debt levels.
And, I mean, these companies are just depleting their debt.
immediately just pine african resources they they took away pretty much a third of
their debt
for this financial year they had a 2028 well it's because 2029 million dollar debt
and and now only trading you know 135 million dollars debt so it
just shows you how great you know these these companies are doing um now just to
get that production up i mean
they need to get that production up and then get it up very quickly okay well said
these margins are still still astound me
and these share prices reflect it and they still astound me i don't want to get in
the way of the bears when they get hold of it though
whether it be in six months time or six years time the scale can i hope i hope
you're prudent
in your gold portfolio management i know i keep saying it and i'm really boring and
i'm not raining on your parade i just want
you to be careful for you and clients that's all no you need to that's that's
that's the one thing lindsay you
and i have got a few gray hairs so we've got
enough gray hairs to um to to know that the gold's always been what did somebody
say that other
you never invest in gold you trade it so yeah this time is different and i'm not
saying that because i think it's going to be different this time it
has been different this has been an investor's market but anyway We had that
story about the central banks last week.
Let's have a look.
My screen's come back up.
Thank you very much indeed.
The dollar round is 1772.
The British pound against the round is 24 on the noggin.
The euro round is 2035 euro dollar 114.80.
And that is a euro that is stronger by a third of a percent.
And the British pound is 135.40.
Gold price 33.40, which is nice, up $21 an ounce.
Platinum 1268, good as me.
up 6% or $70 an ounce.
I remember just a few weeks ago saying, when is this thing going to go from three
figures to four figures?
Now look at it.
It's gone to four figures with a vengeance, nearly $1,300 an ounce.
And the palladium price is $1,096, just shy of $1,100 an ounce.
And that's up nearly 2% on the day or $21.
The oil price has also been having a bit of a go.
which is not good for South Africa, but good for companies like Sassl.
That's been on a tear, as we've spoken about in recent podcasts.
Brent crude oil, $68.02 per barrel, up 1.75%, and West Texas crude,
$66.27, which is up nearly 2% on the day.
Any other movers there?
No, not really.
But yes, commodities having a little bit of a go, with the dollar being slightly
weaker.
The S&P 500.
It's had a look at the benign inflation and said, OK, we don't mind that.
S&P futures up a little bit.
The June futures going off the board quite soon.
So there'll be some activity there.
But also the US-China trade talks.
Trump says the deal has been done.
But then again, what does he know?
US 10-year, 4.44%, which is three basis points down from yesterday,
yield-wise, that is.
The South African 10-year is...
around about 10.14%, I think.
That screen is playing up.
Bitcoin was threatening to go down through 100,000 a week or so ago,
now threatening to go up through 110,000.
Skulk, any other movements you're seeing there?
And start with the shares, if you would, on the JSE, and I'll give you my list in a
moment.
So, yeah, I mean, yeah, Quilter had a wonderful day.
That was up six and a quarter of a percentage.
Yeah, your northern Platinums always stood out again, you know, with Platinum doing
what it's doing.
Four and 4.35%
PPC ship that we've been discussing quite a bit lately.
You know, that is up 4.86%. I'm not going in a specific order.
I'm just looking at a few companies, but I do see your your platinum is in there.
So the Impala Platinum Northern Platinum is definitely there.
Water Sabania is 3.25%.
And then Omnia, I think Omnia brought out either trading statement or
I know it was results that they actually brought out yesterday.
And that looked good.
I mean, fairly lackluster in terms of past 12 months, but the forecast, they said,
well, since the results actually were,
since the year end, things already started to pick up.
So, and...
market liked it yesterday and like it today.
I mean, 4.9% yesterday.
I just want to get back.
Before we continue with the losers and winners, while you were chatting,
I actually decided to go and look at the JSC and the S&P 500.
And we're quick enough to do it in both in the rant.
So if you invested on the 31st of May
2020 into the...
S&P 500,
your portfolio would have grown in RAND terms by
115%.
Now, we always said back in the days, if you can double up your money every five
years,
you've had a fantastic investment.
But yeah, 115% for the S&P 500.
The JSE, wait for it.
Big drumroll.
One in a...
125 percent in randoms in randoms over the exact five years can you convert both of
those
to dollars please don't taste my patents okay well that's
quite good yeah if you're a random investor that is good stuff i mean that's
certainly keeping up with inflation that's for sure No,
it kept up with inflation, but also, I mean, we tend to be very, very hard.
And that's typical South African.
You know, when the proteas sort of drop the ball, they are called chokers.
We are very hard on ourselves,
but I think we don't compliment ourselves equally as much when things go well.
And I know we've been very, very hard on the lackluster performances of South
Africa.
So to all the listeners out there, I mean, we've had a great time.
even outperforming a very extremely bullish S&P 500 over a five-year period.
Ambassador Lowe, thank you very much for that well-received comment.
Multi-choice swings to a full-year loss.
I mentioned multi-choice, but you neatly skirted it.
What is the future of that company?
Maybe one day we'll work it out.
But you have to be nimble in the broadcast market these days.
My shares, you've mentioned Quilt at 6.2% higher, Implats at 5%, Omnia 5% higher.
northam's up 4.3 african rainbow minerals a 3.7 gainer coronation on the downside
that must be an
xdiv stories down six percent scale coronation fund managers yes no yeah
that'll that'll be a
that'll be a a um how do you call it uh xd if you're 100 right i mean we can just
tell you what was
it yes it was to rant on the dot okay Good.
Harmony down nearly 3%.
Aspen down 2.7%.
First round, a 2.25% loser.
And that's about it, Skulk.
It's a quiet time.
It wasn't sell in May and go away.
Maybe it's, I'll try and think of something.
Sell in June if you're a loon or, I don't know, something.
I'll come up with it.
i'll come up with it for next week and it's a big balloon in june for now there
we go that's not bad i'll refer that to balloon okay
very good skunk is a portfolio manager what and a poet yes and an ambassador for
south
african everything south african including your useless uh choking cricket team the
proteas what
was i saying sculp low is a portfolio manager at 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
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