In one of our early newsletters for 2024, we said that “there may be scope for acceptable returns, albeit at lower levels than 2023” As it turns out, 2024 has been a record-breaking year for equities – driven by the US – that has exceeded our expectations and those of most analysts and economists. Although…
This week, the South African economy surprised with a shock decline in GDP of 0.3% for the third quarter. The numbers contradicted economists’ forecasts that GDP would expand by around 0.4% for the period, with the expectation that lower energy prices, a prolonged pause on load-shedding, and confidence in the Government of National Unity (GNU)…
The S&P 500 powered to its 52nd record high of 2024 this week, indicating that the year may end on a really strong note. The index has returned around 26% in dollar terms for the year-to-date, giving investors every reason to smile. Yet, the extent of the strong bull run from October 2022 into 2024…
Many phenomena, including test scores, height, and long-term daily temperatures follow what statisticians call a normal distribution. Plotted on a graph, the values resemble a bell-shaped curve where most data points cluster around the average (mean) and the probabilities of extreme outliers become very insignificant as one moves further from the mean. But, in a…
A perfect storm rained on the South African rand’s parade this week, with the local currency weakening by 3.2% against the dollar since Monday and 5% since last Thursday. This is after holding up reasonably well against a surging dollar in the first two days after Donald Trump was named President-Elect in the US. With…
This week turned out to be exceptionally rewarding for gamblers and traders who bet on Donald Trump. In line with bookmakers’ odds and predictive markets – the probability of a Trump victory on Polymarket was 65% as mentioned in last week’s News Flash. Contrary to polls showing a close race for the presidency, Trump comfortably…
As we noted in our January opinion piece titled the year of the voter, 2024 was being billed as the biggest election year in history with dozens of countries representing around 4 billion people expected to hold general or presidential elections. However, no other election will be as consequential for investors and the world economy…
As a recent article in The Economist points out, America remains an economic powerhouse with performance that readily outperforms every other major economy in the world. Since 1990, the US economy has grown from two-fifths of the GDP of the G7 nations to half. Output per person is some 30% higher than in Western Europe and…
Earlier this week, Daron Acemoğlu and Simon Johnson, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), together with James A Robinson from the University of Chicago were awarded the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. They were rewarded for their exploration of the connection between a country’s societal institutions and economic development. The theory that…
