Festivities have begun and as we see the green Christmas trees go up all over town, so too do we see green come up on our investment screens. The South African All Share index is up 1% year to date and many of our larger companies have had very good returns, such as Glencore +51%, Anglo American +8%, British American Tobacco +19% and Bidvest +17%. If you’ve had cash investments, your interest income has gone up by over 3% and even the rand is fighting back and only 7% weaker against the dollar for the year.
On the international markets, the S&P500 is still down 17% from the beginning of the year but it is improving. Oil has come down a lot from its highs. At one stage we were staring a price of close to $130 a barrel in the face, but now we are down to $77. This is good for all of us on some level. If you’ve had some exposure to emerging markets, you will know that things could have been better there. China has done some unpopular things and with the strongest US dollar we have seen for some time, companies in emerging economies have struggled. But that is changing too. The dollar is coming down and China is becoming more relaxed, so we are looking forward to a good 2023.
We will chat again early in the new year and do a post mortem, but for now markets are winding down and people are taking a well-deserved break. We are confident that your investment portfolios will bounce back to some extent during 2023 but that even apart from that, you will be having a very good one.
