BRIAN KANTOR: Economic shock waves — how does Phala Phala measure up?
The global financial crisis, Covid and the firing of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister were more damaging
Among the periodic shocks to the SA economy and its financial markets Phala Phala does not register as severe, a case of strong tremors rather than an earthquake. The shocks to the economy and its financial markets delivered by the global financial crisis of 2008, the Nenegate crisis of late 2015, and the crisis caused by Covid registered far more strongly and dramatically.
The most appropriate measure of an economy’s status is its credit rating, indicated objectively by the interest spread between its debt issues, payable and repayable in US dollars (known as Yankee bonds), and the interest offered by the US treasury for its debt of the same time to maturity, typically five years. This risk premium can be regarded as the most reliable measure of sovereign risk — the risk that SA will default on its obligation to pay interest and repay the dollars it has borrowed, or may inflate its way out of its obligations to rand creditors...
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