EB Market Update – August 2015
Global – The year of the goat or the bear?
August saw global equity markets reeling under the impact of a totally unexpected Yuan devaluation which triggered significant volatility as well as a major sell-off. The dramatic slide in the grossly overvalued Shanghai Composite Index created investor panic in China and in spite of intervention by the authorities the slide continued. Risk off became the order of the day across all the world’s major markets.
Domestic – “Markets take the stairs up and the elevator down” – Wall Street adage
The South African economy faced almost a perfect storm in August with commodity prices falling rapidly, the currency heading for all-time lows, electricity supply constrained and continued demands from labour for above –inflation wage increases.
Against this background and with volatility at record levels, no stock market escaped the Chinese led rout and not surprisingly the JSE/ALSI closed down 4% at 49972.33 points at month end. In total return terms the index lost 3.55% while 30 day volatility leaped from 16.57 to 21.87. Of the major tradable indices the INDI25 was the worst performer easing 4.60% while the Top40 index declined 4.26%. Whilst the Gold Mining and Platinum indices reversed July’s losses both sectors remain amongst those with the worst performance statistics.
