News and Insights

I have attended the budget lock-up for economists and analysts since it started in 2013. I always look around the lock-up room at the faces of the other analysts to gauge the first reaction to the budget and general sentiment.…
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After an EFF-induced 90-minute delay and a historic 10-minute suspension, the joint sitting of Parliament and the rest of the nation finally got to hear what President Ramaphosa had to say in the 2020 State of the Nation Address (SONA).…
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And so another decade ends with a year that proved that we continue to live in interesting times. 2019 will be remembered for deals and doves, protests and populism, bailouts and Brexit, Miss Universe beauties and rugby beasts. Here is our…
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Global monetary policy has moved through various regimes over the past decade: from traditional interest rate cuts to unconventional measures, such as quantitative easing (QE), forward guidance, and yield curve control. In many economies, policy rates have reached the lower…
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Investors have had a day to digest Finance Minister Mboweni’s make-or-break Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS). According to the market reaction and news headlines, the mini-Budget (as the MTBPS is often referred to) fell woefully short of already pessimistic…
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The US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this week met market expectations by cutting the policy rate form 2.50% to 2.25%. Moreover, quantitative tightening (QT), which is the shrinking of the Fed’s balance sheet, ended on 1 August – two…
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It has been an erratic three months for equity markets. The S&P was Goldilocks in April (+3.9%), but lost it all and then some in May (-6.8%) due to Trump’s tariff tweets. There was a strong rebound in June (+7.2%)…
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Protectionism once again stole the limelight on May 5th when Trump’s tweet reignited slumbering trade war concerns. Until that point global markets had slipped mostly back into complacency, fuelled by a now dovish Fed and a stimulating China, and with…
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By now, we are all suffering from election indigestion. Even so, it is worth highlighting some of the key take-aways from what was a relatively incident-free and apathetic event, given the sharp decline in voter turnout, from 73.5% to 66.0%.…
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Fears of a US recession escalated during the fourth quarter of 2018 amid the slump in risk assets and tightening in financial conditions. Notwithstanding the Fed’s dovish pivot in response to these concerns and attendant easing in financial conditions, various…
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