Citius, Altius, Fortius

(18.8.04) “Swifter, Higher, Stronger”, the modern translation of the Olympic motto or the rallying cries of the oil market traders?

Sasfin Frankel Pollak Securities says that the first week of August hadn’t yet run its course and we had already witnessed fresh oil price highs, higher interest rates in the UK, weaker US jobs data, a second revision to domestic retail sales figures and a spate of local company results.

Despite that fast-paced start to the month, there’ll be little respite any time soon, with reporting season continuing well into September.

Full marks to Stats SA for listening to the market and revising the retail sales data for a second time from what was clearly a nonsensical set of numbers following the first revision process.

The newly released numbers now have a similar look and feel to the ones that are being published by the local listed retailers and consumer-oriented counters.