Unleashing the household sector
The state of the SA economy – reading the tea leaves and providing a recipe for a stronger reviving brew The trend in retail sales volumes in 2015, now updated to May, help confirm that the SA economic...
View ArticleAn avoidable trade off
Less growth for no less inflation: a trade off that could have been avoided with lower, not higher, interest rates Since the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank decided to raise its...
View ArticleExtraordinary volatility in all markets – causes and effects
The past week or two of exceptional market volatility was not so much a case of China sneezing and the world catching cold – but the sense that China may have little idea of how to cope with a cold....
View ArticleESSA presentation on inflation and inflation targeting
Link to ESSA presentation slides: ESSA3.
View ArticleTime to change the narrative
The Reserve Bank needs to change the narrative on inflation and interest rates to take full account of the economic realities The rand exchange rate since 1995 has proven to be anything but...
View ArticleTaking stock of GDP
The SA economy in Q2 2015 was not as it appeared – after taking an inventory According to the first readings of gross domestic output (GDP), in real terms for Q2 2015, the SA economy performed very...
View ArticleHow well is the equity market reading the Fed?
The Fed made one thing very clear on Thursday after it decided to leave its interest rates unchanged: short term interest rates in the US will stay lower for longer than previously forecast. The...
View ArticlePayrolls post mortem
Reading the changing market mind has become a more difficult exercise. The report on US payrolls report on Friday, which was up 142 000 and well below the consensus estimate of 201 000, was not good...
View ArticleThe price of good advice
Calculating the costs and benefits of financial advice – a dangerous exercise in the US and a necessary one in South Africa It may be argued that one of the important functions managers of private...
View ArticlePrices and Budget Reviews – all promising austerity rather than progress
Amid the pandemonium in and around Parliament yesterday, something may have been missed. What probably escaped notice was that for a third month the CPI was unchanged. It reached a value of 116.1 in...
View ArticleSecular Stagnation or normalisation of the global economy? Giving the patient...
A world of permanently low nominal and real interest rates, as well as permanently low inflation, is implied by the current values attached to the US equity market. Our own view is somewhat different –...
View ArticleGlobal rates: The dropping of the shoe
The reactions of the Fed. The other shoe has dropped – thankfully for those living downstairs. The first Fed shoe dropped in May 2013 when it announced it would soon be halting, or in its own words...
View ArticleMonetary policy in SA – the dangers of bad theory put into practice
The Reserve Bank is well aware that there are no demand side upward pressures on the inflation rate. In fact the opposite is very much the case. Weak demand is clearly constraining the power that...
View ArticleAnother own goal for SA
The SA government seems determined to press ahead with a national minimum wage (NMW). This is apparently with the agreement of organised business and labour, though the minimum levels themselves are...
View ArticleThe SA economy at month end November 2015. Do we thank the informal...
We have received some useful information about the state of the SA economy at the end of November 2015. New motor vehicle sales and cash in circulation at month end November present something of a...
View ArticleSA markets: The Zuma shock wave has not passed through
The Zuma shock wave of Wednesday 9 December 2015, when Nhlanhla Nene was replaced by the little-known David van Rooyen, only to be replaced that weekend by Pravin Gordhan, has had time to be absorbed...
View ArticleMonetary policy and the MPC: Recognising the facts
The members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank will be even more perturbed about the behaviour of the rand than the rest of us. However they have had (and will have) as little...
View ArticleFrom Shanghai to Johannesburg – More than the weak rand at work
The JSE has, over the years, become less a play on the SA economy and much more a play on the global economy. This degree of independence for investors from the ups and downs of the SA economy and the...
View ArticleHow fares the SA economy? An update to December
With new vehicle sales and the Reserve Bank note issue for December to hand, we can update our Hard Number Indicator (HNI) of the state of the economy at year end. The economy maintained its sedate...
View ArticlePoint of View: Credit anxiety
There is much anxiety about how much poor South Africans are paying in interest for the credit they receive. Newly shocking to observers is the fact that if a good is purchased on credit the monthly...
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