Economy / General

Businesses in distress?

The question has to be posed as to whether the sharp uptick in credit extension to businesses of 12.6% year-on-year in February from 11.1% in January and 7.5% for calendar 2013, is not a signal of ‘distress borrowing’.

Interest rate hike likely?

Economists are divided about the outcome of this week’s MPC meeting.

SA country outlook - inflation to peak above 8% in 2014

2014 Market and economic outlook

The JSE last year set a fresh record high against a South African economy that will probably fail to achieve even 2% growth, and financial divergences like this were common across the globe. Essentially, this is the effect of the extremely easy monetary policies of the major central banks, with interest rates at zero, reinforced through massive amounts of quantitative easing (QE). The US Federal Reserve is to start tapering QE this year, which has the potential to significantly affect the SA economy and financial markets.