The Rex Column
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Is the financial crisis firmly behind us?
Economic signs: What are they telling us?
Is SA heading for an economic relapse?
SA displays a can-do continent
Feast or famine for the rand?
No interest rate cut (yet, if at all)
Will SA escape the European crisis unscathed?
False economics
Seeking closure and moving on
Shock and recovery
How much more can gold run?
Is the SA economy making a comeback?
European contagion risky for South Africa
The rand's prospects
Why two economies won't work for SA
Latest Comment
Unsettling
Cees, it's worrying to hear you with doubts about the political landscape, with the protection of information bill and the media tribunal these are sure signs that the country has not transitioned into democracy successfully as Namibia has done. This will go far beyond the select few milking the economy for all it's worth. It's very distressing.
by H
31 August 2010 01:27
South Africa through 2013
Cees Bruggemans looks into the crystal ball...
How to characterise South Africa through 2013?
Having maximally contracted its cyclically most sensitive sectors (inventories, consumer durables, residential investment, private investment), incurred collateral damage (exports), scored structural own goals (capping electricity availability) and proving unable to sustain sector locomotive leadership (public infrastructure investment), the South African economy incurred the maximum amount of damage from being purely a bystander to three great global events of 2008 (the commodity inflation surge, the Anglo-Saxon banking crisis and its recession fallout).
24 August 2010 00:39
Down but not yet out as uncertainty rules
Why the rebound is slowing...
With European growth triumphant in Q2 2010 (but for how long?), Chinese growth mildly weaker (but could it worsen?) and US growth decidedly downshifting, the double-dip-recession-cum-deflation crowd is daily gaining more adherents, bond prices are bubbling higher with yields subsiding anew, reminiscent of late 2008.
In South Africa, we are also seeing this same profile shining through in the data. Strong lift in 2H 2009, but 1H 2010 has seen slower momentum, with long bond yields dropping lower.
17 August 2010 01:20
SA economic drag anchors fully deployed
Will a rate cut in September be too late?
Reportedly, the Reserve Bank may only consider cutting interest rates if growth takes a (decided) turn for the worse and inflation remains non-threatening, with downside risk.
Be careful what you wish for, yet much suggests confirmation on all scores.
Though the Bank is forward-looking, the present usually counts for most.
10 August 2010 15:32
Serial crises driving turbo-rand
What's happening in the US, Europe and China?
JOHANNESBURG - Just when South Africa is getting around to the rand testing 7:$ again, politicians indicated they may want to study the possibility of a so-called Tobin tax (a small transaction fee) on incoming foreign capital.
A promise of months is to markets like watching paint dry and grass grow. Markets don't tend to linger too long over such promises. Perhaps later in the year, when there might be more meat to the story, if any, but not now.
03 August 2010 12:53
Interest rate odds
Doing nothing or cutting - that remains the question, argues Cees Bruggemans.
JOHANNESBURG - Doing nothing or cutting - that remains the question.
Financial markets have been discounting 50% odds with an upside bias of the Reserve Bank cutting rates this September.
It indicates there's smoke. Will the fire warrant a follow-through?
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