The South African economy has recently re-joined the world of emerging markets. The JSE, measured in US dollars, has caught up dramatically after having lagged well behind the surging MSCI Emerging Market Index. The JSE, in US dollars, and the SA component of the emerging market (EM) Index have gained over 40% since January 2017 as we show below in figure 1.
These EM and JSE gains have come after an extended period of underperformance when compared to the S&P 500. The S&P 500 has been making new highs so consistently over the past year. The EM Index and the JSE, in US dollars, have still to be worth more dollars than in 2011.
This JSE catch-up has come with the burst of rand strength that accompanied the defeat of President Jacob Zuma and his faction at the ANC electoral congress in December 201, a defeat that promised a new direction for the SA economy. The rand had weakened by about 11% compared to our basket of equally weighted other EM currencies by November. It is now about 4% stronger than the basket of EM peers (see figure 2).
Rand and EM currency strength has come with a noticeably weaker US dollar. The US dollar index (DXY) lost about 12% of its exchange value against other developed market currencies since early 2017 while the index of EM currencies has gained about 10% on the dollar, with the rand up by over 15% over the year.
A weak US dollar is good news for EM economies and especially their consumers. It brings currency strength and lower inflation – particularly of imported goods – and lower interest rates. It is very hard to see how the SA Reserve Bank can fail to respond to these trends with lower interest rates in due course.
The renewed hopes for the SA economy have extended to the bond market and to the risk premiums attached to SA government debt. Both inflationary expectations – measured as the spread between a vanilla 10 year RSA bond and its inflation linked equivalent – have declined sharply, from over 7% in November to about 6% currently. The spread between the RSA 10 year yield and its US Treasury bond of similar duration, that represents the expected depreciation of the ZAR/USD (the interest carry), has also declined by a similar degree. Yet both spreads remain quite elevated by the standards of the past. The belief in permanently lower inflation or a stronger rand is still lacking (See figure 3).
The cost of insuring RSA US dollar-denominated debt has also responded well to the new dispensation in SA. After many years of trading as junk – ever since Zuma sacked finance minister Nene in December 2015 – RSA debt is now competing again on investment grade yields.
Further support for the rand and EM currencies has come from higher commodity and metal prices. As we show below, industrial metal prices have performed better than commodity prices indices (that includes a heavy 27% weighting in oil). The London Metal Exchange Index is up 30% in US dollars since early 2017 (see figure 5). A stronger global economy combined with a weaker US dollar is helpful to EM economies including SA with their dependence on exporting minerals and metals.
The politics as well as the economics of SA are now in a much healthier state as the market place confirms. And the global economy is offering much more encouragement for SA exporters. But as indicated in our figures, there is room for further improvement. Inflation and interest rates can recede and the exchange rate and sovereign risk spreads have room to narrow further. The opportunity presented to SA is to stop the rot (developments to date have been well appreciated in the market place) and then to follow through with wealth creating and poverty reduction initiatives. 29 January 2018