This coming week Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan needs to step up to the plate in what is probably deemed the most crucial budget speeches in history. His duty will be to show that government is serious about reforming and cutting down on spending. The question is whether he has enough fiscal flexibility to prevent the credit rating agencies from cutting...
Read moreInvestor sentiment has been tested so far this year. Panic over the uncontrolled fall in the oil price and concerns over global growth sent stock indices tumbling with some entering bear market territory – a drop of 20% or more from their cyclical highs. Doom prophets re-emerged from the side-lines, calling for a global recession. The International Monetary Fund revised...
Read moreWith consumer confidence hovering near 14 year lows and business confidence at a 5 year low, Wednesday evening’s surprise decision by President Jacob Zuma to replace Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene by the relatively unknown Des van Rooyen finally pushed foreign investor confidence off a cliff as well. The reaction to the announcement has been disastrous and overall confidence was left...
Read moreThe South African economy narrowly avoided falling into a technical recession in the third quarter of this year, but growth was much weaker than expected and the outlook does not look set to improve any time soon. Weak growth conditions were echoed by the RMB/BER Business Confidence Index that dropped further from the previous quarter to its weakest level in...
Read moreSouth African retail sales data for September showed that momentum in the retail industry decelerated faster than expected and sales growth moderated from 4.0% the previous month to 2.7% from a year earlier. Although it will contribute positively to third quarter GDP, it is less than initially expected and is representative of a consumer market that is under strain. The...
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