WEALTH WATCH
STEPHEN CRANSTON: Goldilocks economy still holds sway, but uncertainty remains
Global growth surpassed expectations in 2017 while politics hurt South African investors
It is hard to believe that 2017 counted as a good year, at least for the global economy. While we were absorbed by the ever more bizarre antics of presidents Jacob Zuma and Donald Trump, few outside the economic fraternity noticed a broad-based synchronised recovery. Last year was a cracker. Expectations that international growth would post 3.1% in 2017 proved pessimistic and it ended the year at 3.6%. Such statistics were exposed at presentations from the likes of Stanlib’s Kevin Lings but it did not seem to reflect the increasingly melancholic views of South African investors. Many still have to recover from the traumatic events around the sacking of Nhanhla Nene as finance minister at the end of 2015 and more recently the replacement of Pravin Gordhan at the Treasury by the well tailored Malusi Gigaba. According to Sanisha Packirisamy and Herman van Papendorp, the top down team at Momentum Investments, Gigaba did so much damage to the bond market in October with his disappointing...
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