You will no doubt also be feeling rather edgy after recent developments in both local and overseas stock and bond markets.
Last week we lost around 9% on the bond market while the currency lost even more and local bank shares specifically lost 20% on average.
Overseas there are concerns that the government bond markets have become over extended in general.
Despite Pravin Gordhan having been appointed as the replacement Finance Minister on Sunday night, local equities, bonds as well as the Rand have still not fully recovered their losses of last week.
The opinion of some analysts is that Jacob Zuma’s actions of last Wednesday have now moved South Africa into the sub-category of those Emerging Markets which have unstable political outlooks meaning that our overall investment attractiveness now faces an additional headwind. Of course, this new trend may be a positive one for locals as the possibility of Zuma being told to vacate his position as president is now a slight possibility, while for overseas investors the new uncertainty on the political front is not a welcome development.
The next few months will indicate where our country is headed politically, and in the interim markets of all sorts will suffer due to the increased perception that we are not an investor-friendly destination, for the moment anyhow.
A cautious stance is prudent in these uncertain times and radical changes to portfolios and currency mixes at this time are not wise. Portfolios should ideally have been cautiously positioned some months ago and the Rand should recover, at least to some degree, in the coming weeks.
We would like to wish you a safe, relaxing and happy festive season.
The team at Intasure Life
