Italy ended its longest post-war political stalemate on Friday when its new coalition government was sworn in. Also on Friday, Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, was ousted in a vote of no confidence and replaced on Saturday by Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez. On the other side of the Atlantic, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Canada, Mexico and the EU, raising renewed fear of a global trade war. And to cap the wave of market-moving economic news on Friday, US jobs figures came in well above expectations, cutting the US unemployment rate to levels last seen decades ago and adding impetus to the strong dollar. None of this is particularly good for emerging markets in general, and SA in particular — even though the swearing-in of a new populist government in Italy brought at least some stability to Europe’s third-largest economy. The new government, led by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League...
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