ARTICLES

4Sight

The world has, in the last twenty years, entered what has been characterised as the 4^th Industrial Revolution (4IR). It has been described as “... the biggest structural change of the past 250 years — a transformation of scale, scope and complexity unlike anything humankind has experienced before.” In simpler terms, 4IR refers to the digital convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IOT), robotics and cloud computing. 

The importance of 4IR was perhaps best illustrated by the announcement of Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 humanoid robot in December 2023. This robot is specifically designed to operate in and learn from a world which is designed for people. It has the physical form and capabilities of a human being, but with greater strength and endurance.

Elon Musk suggests that within a relatively short time there will be millions of humanoid robots in the world performing thousands of boring, repetitive or dangerous tasks which are currently done by people. This development is at once both exciting and frightening since it will revolutionise almost every aspect of human behaviour. 4IR aims to increase productivity in all areas of human endeavour.

The only company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) which is specifically exploiting the shift to 4IR directly is 4Sight (4SI). 4SI listed on the JSE in October 2017, but only began to attract the attention of investors towards the end of last year. We added it to the Winning Shares List on 5^th August 2023 at a price of 31c and it has since risen to 72c. Consider the chart:

The company operates through four “clusters”:

1. Operational Technologies - 4IR technologies and services to help industrial customers with their full end-to-end digital transformation journey.
2. Information Technologies - enabling the digital transformation of ERP, accounting, human resources, and payroll disciplines.
3. Business Environment - partners with customers to drive value-creating digital transformation in specific areas of the business.
4. Channel Partner - supporting and empowering an ever-expanding channel of value-added resellers across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Europe.

In its results for the six months to 30^th June 2023, the company reported revenue up 37,1% and headline earnings per share (HEPS) up 197,2%.

The company’s balance sheet shows a healthy cash balance of R93m, up 33% on the previous comparable period.

In our view, this is a company growing rapidly on the back of the latest developments in computers and the internet. The only real problem with investing in a share like this is understanding exactly what it is that they do – but they are clearly very successful and expanding quickly.

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PDSNET ARTICLES - SEPTEMBER 2020

The Relationship between Fundamental and Technical Analysis

There are generally two approaches to share assessment – fundamental and technical analysis. The fundamentalist is trying to answer the question, “How good will the company be as a generator of dividends in the future?” while the technician is looking for patterns in the share’s price and volume charts to improve his predictions of where the share

Oil

The Oil market is usually an excellent barometer of the state of the world economy. When there is growth, people buy more cars and drive more, more products are consumed which means they have to be transported to retail outlets – usually by an internal combustion engine of some sort.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the oil price (North Sea Brent) to collapse to prices below $20 a barrel

Alviva

There is plenty of value for private investors on the JSE at the moment. The big institutions are focusing on the large blue-chip shares and ignoring the smaller companies, but some of those smaller companies offer really good opportunities. We think that Alviva (AVV) is worthy of your consideration.  
Alviva describes itself as,

Two interesting shares.

Warren Buffett has famously been quoted as saying “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when other are fearful”. Right now, investors are understandably fearful and for that reason there are some unusual opportunities in the market. The shares which would obviously benefit in the post-COVID-19 period have already moved – shares like Prosus and Sibanye. In fact, mining