The concept of "shovels in the gold rush" is really useful in investing, as it speaks directly to thematic opportunities where the approach is to pick a stock as far up the value chain as possible.

A perfect example is Coinbase, which is really a play on the broader crypto market. A less pure-play example is Accenture, which is an attempt to get a slice of the action in AI and cloud investment by corporates. And if you stretch the definition even further, you can come up with plenty of other examples.

Is this a good strategy? And why? Perhaps most importantly, does it always work?

Using examples from our own portfolios, we took the opportunity to discuss the concept of shovels in the X-rush and why investors should add it to their thinking.

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

With the news of NVIDIA investing in OpenAI and with our focus this week in Magic Markets Premium on the truly wild forecasts being put out there by Oracle, we use our recent real-world experience with AI to comment on where it works and where it horribly fails to add any value at all. Or worse, where it confidently "hallucinates" and gives completely the wrong answer.

Of course, there's a much bigger risk at play here: whether the world has found itself in bubble territory in AI, particularly in assets like data centres.

Amidst all the excitement out there, it's important to keep the bear case in view for these assets. As the markets have taught us many times, things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem.

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

In the US market, companies are required to report quarterly - for now, at least. The latest utterances by President Trump suggest that quarterly reporting is being viewed in a negative light, with the SEC noting that they will be looking at whether reporting should move to align with most of the rest of the world i.e. results every six months.

We don't like this idea. Although there are lots of arguments out there about short-term vs. long-term thinking and all the rest, our preference is always for fresh information and giving investors more to work with.

In this episode, we discussed our views on quarterly reporting and debated some of the associated points.

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

What causes share prices to move? Are there always sensible reasons, or does the market sometimes dish up crazy things?

There are academic arguments and practical considerations for most things, ranging from dividend signalling through to technical indicators and even the pandemic-era phenomenon that is meme stocks. In this podcast, we covered a number of price catalysts and what they really mean, while touching on things to look out for.

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

As a follow-on show from the previous week where we talked about how to analyse retailers, we decided to cover the biggest trend right now in the sector: the rise of omnichannel retail. Digital isn't the future, it's the present! Retailers without proper digital strategies are being left behind at an alarming rate.

We touched on global statistics around eCommerce penetration before diving into specific elements of omnichannel retail, including fascinating insights gleaned by our resident ghost in a discussion with Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht after the release of results.

If you're interested in understanding the top-of-mind strategies in the retail sector, this show is for you.  

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

The retail sector isn't just a critical source of employment and consumer goods in every economy in the world. No, it's also a major contributor to stock indices and portfolio strategies that look for strong underpins that can give protection against inflation.

Analysing retailers requires a nuanced approach that includes an understanding of margins, working capital and other balance sheet concepts. With a discussion that includes topics like category-level gross margin and the importance of omnichannel strategies to trading density, this episode of Magic Markets gives a useful overview of some of the key concepts used by professional analysts when they assess retailers.

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.  

Stablecoins are highly topical at the moment, with important new legislation in the US and many discussions taking place around the world with regulators. But why do they matter so much in the world of blockchain and crypto?

To explain the importance of stablecoins and to talk through critical concepts like yield-bearing stablecoins and the various use cases of this technology, Connie Bloem of Mesh.Trade joined us on this podcast.

We also touched on the recently launched SLVR token that allows investors to gain access to silver, an interesting follow-up the gold product that launched on Mesh.Trade earlier this year.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor. Mesh Trade SA (Pty) Ltd is a licensed Financial Services Provider (53710) and an Accountable Institution registered with the Financial Intelligence Centre.

Stocks like Microsoft, Meta and Netflix have been strong winners in our portfolios (although we've had different exposures to them at different times). These stocks are great case studies to deal with two important questions.

The first relates to letting winners run. How do we think about having long-term vs. tactical positions and potentially trimming them over time?

The second relates to winners in a different context, being stocks in sectors with winner-takes-all or winners-take-most economics. Does this change the way we think about them over time?

As always, this podcast is a way to share our ideas with listeners and drive debate. It is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial advice.

Earlier this week, Mpact gave the South African market a positive surprise. The packaging group is a major supplier to the agri sector, particularly for the export of agricultural products from South Africa like citrus. At a time when the market was expecting doom and gloom thanks to US tariffs, Mpact gave a positive outlook around agricultural activity and the share price rallied in response.

To find out whether this bullish outlook is warranted, we asked Wandile Sihlobo to join us on the show. Despite the last minute decision to go this route, he graciously accepted the invite and brought his expert voice to the discussion.

It turns out that the real story on SA agriculture is a lot more bullish than you might think.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.  

Are consumers still having fries with that, or have changes in consumer preferences (like more awareness of health and nutrition) given fast food stocks a knock?

Quick-service restaurants are businesses that can scale quickly, usually through a franchise model, which is why they've historically done well. They don't all take this route though, as evidenced by Chipotle that we just covered in Magic Markets Premium - and that's one of the best names in this sector. Clearly, there are important nuances here.

Aside from the global names, how have Spur and Famous Brands been doing on the JSE? And what are some of the core differences in their strategies?

You listen to this show on an empty stomach at your own risk. You can also expect to hear a brief argument about Italian milkshakes.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Please speak to your personal financial advisor.