Local News
- July new vehicle sales were down 17% year-on-year
- South Africa's net reserves rose to $40.901 billion in July
- The ANC suffered worst election since taking power
- The ANC also lost power in all the major metropolitans including, Nelson Mandela Bay, City of Johannesburg and the City of Tshwane
- South Africa's business confidence index rose to 96.0 points in July from 95.1 in June, lifted by a firmer Rand and improvements in export volumes and retails sales
- Manufacturing output rose more than expected in June while mining production shrank at a slower rate than market estimates, raising hopes the economy could fend off a recession and ratings downgrades to junk later in the year. Manufacturing output rose 4.5% year-on-year in June and 0.7% on a monthly basis, while mining production fell 2.5%
- June's activity data suggests that the South African economy grew by about 2% quarter-on-quarter, thus avoiding a technical recession
- The Rand plunged nearly three percent on reports that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan had been ordered to report to a special police unit by the end of the week (25 August 2016). Pravin Gordhan did not end up attending
- South Africa's CPI slowed to 6% year-on-year in July
- Growth in credit demand by South Africa's private sector slowed to 6.78% year-on-year in July from a revised 7.23% in June
- The Rand tumbled to its weakest in three weeks on Wednesday (31 August 2016) after reports that a large asset manager was halting loans to state-owned firms, spooking investors already concerned about the management of the economy
- South Africa's trade surplus shrinks to 5.22 billion Rand in July
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Compiled from data obtained from www.sharenet.co.za. Returns are for the period 1 August 2016 - 31 August 2016 calculated by Global & Local technical Department and is therefore not the actual returns achieved
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International News
- Monetary easing moved by major central banks, including the Bank of Japan's negative interest rate policy, are hurting global lenders by driving down returns from loans and bond investments
- Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank will be dropped from the STOXX Europe 50 Index. The move followed a more than 45% slump in shares of both Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank so far this year
- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet approved 13.5 trillion Yen ($132 billion) in fiscal measures even as the central bank fought market speculation that it is preparing to put the brakes on monetary stimulus for the world's third-biggest economy
- The Bank of England cut interest rates for the first time since 2009 and said it would buy 60 billion pounds of government debt to ease the blow from Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union. The central bank said it expected the economy to stagnate for the rest of 2016 and suffer weak growth throughout next year, and lowered its main lending rate to a record-low 0.25% from 0.5%, in line with market expectations. The central bank cut its growth forecast for next year to 0.8% from 2.3%
- Malaysia's export growth rose unexpectedly in June, driven by higher demand for manufactured goods from the United States, which offset the hit to the oil-producing country's commodities shipments. Exports in June grew 3.4% from a year earlier
- China fuel exports hit record highs in July, with crude imports up 1.2%
- China's exports and imports fell more than expected in July in a rocky start to the third quarter, pointing to further weakness in global demand in the aftermath of Britain's decision to leave the European Union. Imports fell 12.5% from a year earlier, the biggest decline since February, and suggesting China's domestic demand may be faltering despite a flurry of measures to stimulate economic growth
- Egypt's annual urban consumer price inflation flat at 14% in July
- New Zealand has joined Australia in cutting interest rates to record lows to stave off deflation and to restrain rising currencies, but a rapid descent to zero rates is bedevilled by solid economic growth and hot housing markets.The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) cut rates by 25 basis points to 2.0%, while Australia cut rates to an all-time low of 1.5% early this month
- Spain's 10-year bond yield fell 2 basis points to a low of 0.93%, squeezing the gap over German equivalents to 110 bps - its tightest level this year
- Turkey's central bank cut interest rates for the sixth straight month on Tuesday (23 August 2016), despite high inflation and the threat of credit rating downgrades, saying the adverse market impact of last month's failed coup had all but reversed. The bank cut its overnight lending rate, the highest of the multiple interest rates it uses to set policy, by 25 basis points to 8.5%. It left its benchmark one-week repo rate unchanged at 7.5 %
- A strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck central Italy - about 161 kilometres from Rome - in the early hours of Wednesday (24 August 2016)
- Japan’s unemployment rate now sits at the lowest level seen in over 21 years. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the unemployment rate fell to 3.0%
- The Saudi economy grew at its slowest rate since 2013, the non-oil sector shrank by 0.7% and output in the construction sector shrank by 1.9% year-over-year in July
- Italy's July unemployment rate falls to 11.4% but 63,000 jobs lost
- Africa's largest economy, Nigeria, has officially entered recession after two consecutive quarters of contraction. Gross domestic product shrank by 2.06% in the second quarter of 2016, following a 0.36% shrinking in the first quarter
- Pakistan's annual inflation rate fell to 3.56% in August from 4.12% in July, mainly due to a decline in food prices
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