Last week, Microsoft posted market-beating numbers. Revenue came in at $61.9 billion for the first three months of the year, up 17% from last year and $1 billion more than the market was expecting. Microsoft has incredible margins, so it generated $31.9 billion in operating cash flow for the quarter. Just wow!

Microsoft's future lies in its cloud and AI computing divisions. The Azure business grew by 31% over the last twelve months and is expected to ramp up at a similar rate in future. Goldman Sachs estimates that it could be a $200 billion-a-year operation by 2029. Microsoft doesn't break out Azure's standalone revenue, but our best guess is that it is somewhere between $60 to $80 billion a year, meaning if Goldman is correct, there is an extra $120 billion in revenue to be added in the next four years.

On the AI front, Microsoft seems to be the only large player at the moment making real money from the new technology. The Office 365 suite of applications is already a crucial component of the working world, and 60% of Fortune 500 companies are now using the AI assistant Copilot for Office 365. This gives Microsoft extra revenue as well as important usage data to make the AI assistant more effective. They also have 1.8 million customers using GitHub Copilot, a platform that helps developers write code.

Microsoft has annual revenue of over $235 billion, and incredibly, is still growing very quickly. A must-own in any portfolio.

I'm currently in Seoul, the massive, modern city that is the capital of South Korea. It's a brilliant urban environment, full of new buildings, beautiful cars, and countless restaurants. As I jogged around town today, enjoying the springtime foliage (see below) and marvelling at the entrepreneurial energy on show, I was wondering how big this economy could get in the decades ahead.

Noah Smith argues that Asia is much more important to Western interests than the Middle East. He thinks that if China and Russia are allowed to dominate Asia, they would eventually force the US to its knees through a combination of economic sanctions and military threats. He believes that the US should continue to ally itself with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and provide them with direct military assistance.

The developed Asian countries have advanced enormously in recent decades. The International Monetary Fund just raised its Asia growth forecast for 2024 to 4.5%. But they have two major weaknesses - limited natural resources (land and commodities) and very low population growth rates (running out of young people). In time, that might count against them.

Scottie Scheffler is on fire in the PGA Tour this year, and his caddie might just have the sweetest gig in golf. Scheffler has clinched victory in 4 out of his last 5 tournaments, including prestigious events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Masters.

With the PGA Tour upping the ante in prize money to keep up with LIV golf, Scheffler is cashing in big time. He's raked in a cool $16 million in the past 45 days alone. That's roughly $250 every minute for over a month, putting him on track to smash the single-season PGA record with still five months left in the season.

But let's not forget about Scheffler's trusty caddie, Ted Scott. On the PGA Tour, caddies typically follow a standard payment structure, keeping 5% of their player's earnings when they make the cut, 7% for a top-10 finish, and 10% when their player locks in a win.

For Ted Scott, that's meant pocketing $1.77 million so far this season. That's more than the earnings of 75% of PGA Tour players this year. This caddie's earnings are ahead of big-name golfers like Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, and Viktor Hovland - all without even swinging a club.

Island hopping on a boat in the Caribbean sounds like a great holiday. Doing it with 10 000 other people on cruise liner sounds less enticing - Four Seasons is launching more exclusive yacht cruises in 2026.

Do anger management techniques work? Seneca once said "my anger is likely to do more harm than your wrong" - Try writing down your thoughts and shredding them.

Asian markets are on the rise this morning, with gains in India, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Stocks in mainland China are slightly lower. The latest economic data from China indicates that factory activity has expanded for the second consecutive month. Good going.

Locally, food group Libstar revealed a strategy to expand product sales into other African regions, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Despite this impressive-sounding announcement, there was no change in the company's share price.

US equity futures are little changed pre-market. The Rand is trading at around R18.68 to the US Dollar.

Today is a big one for earnings, with Amazon, Eli Lilly, Stryker, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, AMD, and McDonald's reporting their first-quarter numbers. Tomorrow the Fed will most likely announce no change to US interest rates, but may provide more clarity around when the first rate cut will happen.

Enjoy your Workers' Day tomorrow. We will be taking the day off too, and will be back in your inbox on Thursday.