Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to make $1 trillion, and PIC CEO goes back to work

On Tuesday, 4 August, the South African rand was stronger against the United States dollar, supported by lower oil prices.

The rand was trading at R16.39 against the greenback, 0.9% stronger than its previous close.

Oil prices fell to a three-week low following comments from Qatar and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that raised hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the US/Iran war.

The JSE had another good day on Tuesday, with the All Share Index up 1.40%.

The biggest movers on the exchange were investment and mining company the Salungano Group, up 17.65%, and Primary Health Properties, which was up 16.66%.

In the global market, US stocks rallied following Bessent’s comments, particularly AI-themed stocks.

The Dow industrials rose by 1.7% and closed above 54,000 for the first time. The Nasdaq was up 2.6%, while the S&P 500 climbed 1.8%.

Palantir was a standout performer, with its shares up 29% after the company raised its outlook and announced that quarterly revenue had doubled.

On Wednesday morning, the rand was trading at R16.36 against the US dollar, R22.01 against the British pound, and R18.87 against the euro.

5 important things

Public Investment Corporation CEO is back in business: South Africa’s High Court ruled that PIC CEO Patrick Dlamini’s suspension in mid-July was unlawful. The court ordered his reinstatement, while investigations into governance concerns at the state-owned asset manager continue. [Reuters]

Oil prices sink for two days straight: Global oil prices have declined for the past two days on the back of hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the US/Iran war and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. [Bloomberg]

SpaceX aiming for the moon: Billionaire Elon Musk outlined ambitious targets for SpaceX on Tuesday, projecting that the company will reach $1 trillion in revenue. He also told investors during the company’s first-ever earnings call that SpaceX will build its AI services exclusively on Nvidia’s systems going forward. [Wall Street Journal; Yahoo Finance]

OpenAI in hot water: ChatGPT-owner OpenAI announced on Tuesday that some of its AI models and some from another AI lab were involved in three previously unreported cybersecurity incidents. These new incidents are separate from a previously disclosed case involving Hugging Face. [Bloomberg]

Currency collusion between the US and Japan: Washington and Tokyo have been in cahoots to boost the Japanese yen. As the US’s largest creditor, Japan’s currency testing at 40-year lows was a concern to the US, and the American nation stepped in to prevent Japan from selling its US bonds to defend the yen. [Wall Street Journal]