Market scorecard
US markets had a mixed session on Friday, with a pleasing rally late in the day. The S&P 500 closed in positive territory, buoyed by gains in the energy, real estate, and utility sectors, and the Nasdaq ended flat. Despite recent pullbacks in technology stocks, both indices finished May on a high note. The Nasdaq gained 6.9% for the month.
In company news, Gap surged 29% after the clothing retailer posted strong results across all its brands and raised its sales and profit forecasts for the current fiscal year. Elsewhere, Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ:DJT) fell 5.3% after The Donald was found guilty on all counts in his hush-money case on Thursday. Finally, Boston Beer Company (NYSE:SAM) shares gained 21% on reports that the company may sell itself to Suntory.
On Friday, the JSE All-share closed down 0.59%, the S&P 500 gained 0.80%, and the Nasdaq was flat.
One thing, from Paul
So, our election is complete, and no one knows what will happen next. As it stands, the ANC has to decide who to do a deal with, to form a government.
After a positive start in 1994, the ANC has made an absolute hash of this country in the last 15 years. Their epic faceplant in this election was just the latest in a series of ridiculous own goals. However, they still managed to garner 40% of the vote.
The members of the ANC's national executive will be weighing up their options over the days ahead, choosing between an alliance with the EFF, or an alliance with the DA. No one wants to talk to the Zuma family (MK party), they are beyond redemption.
The so-called "doomsday scenario", where the EFF takes major economic portfolios in a new cabinet, could well come to pass. For now, the Rand is trading around R18.75 to the US Dollar. It may not hold those levels.
If your life savings are with Vestact, snoozing safely in the USA at Fidelity, you can watch all this drama unfold with a degree of detachment.
Byron's beats
I am still reading through the latest Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) numbers and finding interesting insights that are worth reporting back on. For instance, according to their CFO Colette Kress, the cloud service providers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft) contributed nearly half of the data centre revenue. That means that around $11.3 billion out of a total of $26 billion came from cloud hosting.
You might be wondering why these companies still spend so much money with Nvidia? The Stock Market Nerd (one of my favourite financial bloggers) did some calculations and has provided a very compelling answer:
"Why is demand so exceedingly strong? Because Nvidia remains materially ahead of everyone else in its ability to deliver large training, efficiency, and total cost of ownership (TCO) edges. These large leads facilitate strong return on investment (ROI) for cloud providers. Specifically, every $1 spent on Nvidia's AI infrastructure (including chips and Cuda) leads to $5 in GPU-instance hosting revenue over a 4-year span for its customers. This means Nvidia chips facilitate a compelling payback period of under 1 year."
Seems like money well spent to me.
Michael's musings
One of the key Vestact investment themes is that people will live longer, and thanks to the growth in global wealth and advancements in medicine, they will spend a lot of money on medical procedures to have a comfortable old age. No one wants to get old, but if your body holds up, it makes the ageing process less painful.
Imagine having medicine precisely customised for your DNA, to give you the best results. We don't have to imagine anymore. Researchers have been working on cancer vaccines for a while, and the day has arrived where they will be made available to thousands of people.
Each vaccine is customised to the DNA of the person receiving it. The vaccine teaches your body to detect and kill certain types of cancer cells. That sounds much better than chemo that kills just about every cell, in the hope that all the cancerous cells have died too.
Read more about it here - NHS patients in England to be offered trials for world-first cancer vaccine.
Bright's banter
Carl Icahn has acquired a significant stake in Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR) but apparently has no plans to engage in activist efforts against the company, yet.
Icahn, who played a key role in the 2020 merger of Caesars and Eldorado Resorts, expressed strong support for current CEO Tom Reeg. It sounds too good to be true.
Following the news, Caesars' shares rose as much as 18% and closed up 12%. This increase brought the company's market cap to around $7.6 billion.
Icahn's history with the gambling sector includes securing board seats and advocating for major mergers. For now he remains supportive of Caesars' current management strategy.
Signing off
Asian markets have rallied this morning, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific index seeing its biggest increase since 21 March. Benchmarks are up in India, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea but slightly lower in mainland China. The Indian Rupee also rose as indications are that Modi's party is winning the election there comfortably, and his team will be in position to push for pro-growth economic policies. Must be nice.
Locally, Dischem (JO:DCPJ) posted an 11.1% growth in full-year revenue, driven by its wholesale and independent pharmacy businesses, but its headline earnings per share dipped by 1.6%. They announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in financial services company OneSpark for R156 million.
US equity futures are in the green today, but it's very early days. The Rand is at around R18.72 to the US Dollar, waiting for direction.
This week we have earnings reports coming from CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD), Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU), Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK), Nio (NYSE:NIO), and Docusign (NASDAQ:DOCU).
It's June, and it seems winter has finally arrived in Johannesburg. Stay warm and have a good week.