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…
QED’s joint report with Eckler has been updated using data as of 1 June. The report includes data on testing statistics from around the world, as well as age-specific infection and mortality rates. Our African clients are referred also to Section 7, containing analysis for many African countries.A new addition 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
February 2020 Overall, real yields are uninspiring across all the African markets considered. The downward trend is likely to continue until the full implications of COVID-19 come to light. With the rand seen as a proxy for its emerging-market peers, and local factors such as rolling Eskom power cuts and Read more…
January 2020 Overall, yields are uninspiring across the African markets considered, with only Nigeria and Mauritius showing positive real returns over the month. Over 5 years after factoring in currency depreciation, all the countries considered have underperformed the emerging market index (which is already mediocre). The South African Reserve Bank Read more…
December 2019 Most of the emerging markets have shown improved performance in recent months with the exception of Zambia and Nigeria. However, over the longer-term (5 years) returns have generally remained poor with all markets considered yielding negative real returns. Click more to view the full Dashboard. View Full Dashboard Read more…
November 2019 The volatility in the South African equity market persists with a 1.9% decline this month following some recovery in the previous month. This is also reflected in the JSE volatility index, which increased by 6.6% in the last month. Overall, real yields are uninspiring across all the African Read more…