Stock markets remained volatile this week with central banks and policymakers navigating the difficult trade-offs between keeping inflation under control and preventing a severe economic downturn. In the US, markets vacillated as investors balanced robust economic indicators against fears that this same economic strength will provoke the Fed to raise interest rates higher and for…
Major currencies dropped against the US dollar this week with a red-hot job market, resilient consumer spending and persistent inflation, suggesting that the Fed will continue on its present path of hiking interest rates. Yet, this week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), confirmed that the US is on track to add nearly $19 trillion to…
The State of the Nation Address is an annual fixture on most countries’ political calendars, an event when the head of the state updates citizens, the legislature, and the executive about the government’s priorities for the year. It’s an opportunity to outline the regime’s progress towards its goals as well as its plans to solve…
What a great start to the year for equity investors! Combined forces such as a slowdown in the pace of rate hikes in the US; a record quantum of share buybacks; the re-opening of the Chinese economy; resilient cash-flow generation of leading quality companies for calendar year 2022, upward revisions to global GDP for 2023,…
Quality-style global equity managers typically deliver a more defensive return profile during periods of sharp market drawdowns. Quality companies are characterised as having low levels of leverage, strong balance sheets and cash flow generation, together with lower cyclicality of earnings, and, as such, our selected portfolios should have fared better than markets in general during…
Equity markets have enjoyed a strong start to the year despite a slight retracement this week, with the S&P 500 peaking last Friday 4.16% up year-to-date, and our preferred global equity funds having gained as much as 6.7% earlier this week. Looking forward, we believe that earnings will be the key market influencer for the…
It would be satisfying to end the year on a positive note, as was the case last year when the S&P 500 and the FTSE/JSE gained 26.9% and 24.1%, as measured in dollars and rand, respectively. Unfortunately, this will not be the case for 2022. On the global front, this year draws to a close…
Inflation is the theme that has defined 2022, so the year draws to a close with some welcome news. This week, we saw the first signs that price pressures may be peaking with the annual US consumer price index (CPI) at 7.1% for November, the lowest since December last year, and below a reading of…
As the global community seeks to accelerate the move towards cleaner power sources, South Africa’s government is still hooked on coal. This is despite the hundreds of billions of rand South Africa has secured from rich countries to help fund its just transition towards renewable energy. Business Day carries an editorial about how government seems…
