August 2020 The performance of the JSE remains relatively flat over the longer term and is negative if one allows for inflation and currency depreciation. Headline inflation is starting to increase for most countries considered. The Rand strengthened against most currencies considered over the past month except the British Pound, Read more…
Insurance companies are finding it ever more difficult to meet shareholder’s expectations of profits and return on capital and choosing on which business initiatives to focus on. QED has developed a toolbox of instruments to increase profitability and decrease the cost of capital. A description of these tools and methodology Read more…
July 2020 The JSE continues to rebound from its low in March with another month of positive real returns in local currency terms. Inflation is relatively subdued for most countries due to reduced consumer demand as a result of lockdown. The South African Reserve Bank has reduced its repo rate Read more…
The COVID-19 monitoring report produced by QED and Ecklers contains comprehensive statistics on the ongoing pandemic, covering reported infection, mortality and testing rates, excess mortality and age specific profiles of the pandemic. Click here for the report incorporates publicly available data from four different sources: The infection, mortality and recovery statistics Read more…
June 2020 Following the poor returns over the first quarter of 2020, the South African equity market rebounded over quarter two. Most of the African markets considered have also shown some recovery (apart from Ghana and Zambia). Reduced demand across most sectors has resulted in subdued inflation across most countries Read more…
In this month’s note, we discuss two applications of data science techniques that have been applied to understand the masses of COVID19 data that has been collected since March 2020. The first application shows how a data-driven summary of the data in the John Hopkins database can be produced, and Read more…
May 2020 The JSE’s performance this month was flat after some recovery last month. All indices remain uninspiring particularly over the longer term. The repo rate was cut again by 50 bp and this has resulted in the sharp drop in the yield curve at shorter durations. The rand has Read more…
April 2020 The JSE has had a good month’s performance but still haven’t recovered from losses earlier in the year. The downgrade by FitchRatings from BB+ to BB seems to have largely been priced in. The repo rate was cut again by 1% (after previous month’s cut). Click more to Read more…
March 2020 The JSE has had a torrid time in the last few months. This was fuelled by the general market downturn across all markets as a result of COVID-19 as well as the rand weakness. The recent Moody’s downgrade appears to have been largely price in already. The recent Read more…
South African markets have been hit by a double whammy of exceptional market volatility linked to the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as the downgrade of the SA sovereign rating to junk status by Moody’s on 27 March 2020. Click more to view the full report. View Full Volatility Report