March 2023 Update
F&A Monthly Update | MARCH 2023
We hope you had a wonderful Easter and some much-needed quality time with loved ones! April is a staggered month with public holidays and interruptions and we have taken this broken time to carefully map the coming 12 months out. I hope to share our views on South Africa, a sustainable model for living here, and our updated vision and mission over the coming months with you!
For now, please check out the below monthly piece from Brendan.
Sending love
Richard and the F&A team
March 2023 Update
This month's piece is compiled by Brendan de Jongh, SA Head of Research - PortfolioMetrix.
GLOBAL UPDATE
US banking failures dominated financial market news in March. The impact of this was felt globally as banks’ business models, and indeed regulation, were questioned and risk appetite was muted. At the same time, major developed market central banks continued to raise interest rates to further push down inflation. Whilst economic data remained robust and pointed to a strengthening global economy, the fallout from the banking sector issues reduced expectations for future rate rises, which caused bond yields to fall and hence bond prices to rise. Equity market performance was mixed: fragility and a risk-off sentiment broadly resulted in cyclical (and particularly financials) falling, but more growth-oriented stocks bounced as bond yields (and hence the discount rate on their future earnings) fell. Follow the link below for more detail on events that transpired in the month.
LOCAL UPDATE
Of the major asset classes, local and global real estate performed the worst with global real estate affected both at an asset level and from a strengthening rand. South African (SA) equities also fell over the month dragged lower by the financials sector which fell in sympathy with banking stocks globally. SA bonds were the best performing asset class as yields rallied throughout the course of the month supporting bond prices. Follow the link below for more detail on events that transpired in the month.
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