After a roaring start, 2018 ended with klap after klap
But a slump is not a death sentence, as the likes of Old Mutual and Anglo American can attest
The past year promised so much but ended up in a proper klap. We had a rip-roaring start to 2018 with domestic retail shares on the JSE rising 15% at the beginning of the year. But as Warren Buffett famously warned, the time to be fearful is when everyone is greedy. The JSE plummeted 12% in 2018, its worst performance since the global financial crisis. Even the call to invest offshore was not a slam-dunk. Those who felt the US markets were overheated did not contend with the boost provided by US President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts. On the other hand, Europeans had to grapple with their own demons: Brexit and a pernicious Italian economy, to name just two. With China as their poster child, emerging markets had to brace for a slowdown in growth and, to make matters worse, Trump upped the ante by threatening them with an all-out trade war. Klap after klap! So no surprise that global equity markets had their worst December since World War 2, with the S&P 500 down 9% in the month...
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