In June, global equities continued to deliver strong performance as many global indices climbed to new record highs supported by favourable monetary and fiscal policy. Locally, SA equities delivered their first negative monthly performance since October 2020 mostly due to weaker commodity prices, thus also leading to a significantly weaker Rand to the US Dollar. The country moved to lockdown level 4 restrictions amidst a 3rd wave surge of Covid-19 cases which is beginning to rival the severity of the 2nd wave experienced in December 2020. SA headline inflation rose to 5.2% in May (from 4.4% in April) mostly due to increases in food and transport prices while core inflation notched up only 0.1% higher to 3.1%over the same period.
The JSE All Share Index (down 2.4%) sold off slightly in June.
SA Resource stocks (down 6.4%) and Financials (down 3.0%) fell while Industrials were up 0.4%.
Small-cap (down 1.0%) outperformed Mid-cap (down 6.2%) and Large-cap shares (down 2.6%).
Emerging Market Equities underperformed their Developed Market peers with the MSCI World up 1.5% in US Dollar terms while the MSCI Emerging
Market Index was up 0.2%.
Both the S&P SA REITs Index (up 2.6%) and the SA Listed Property Index (up 3.4%) benefitted from a slightly better local economic outlook.
SA Bonds performed well, ending the month up 1.1% while inflation-linked bonds were down 1.2%.
The Rand depreciated in June. It depreciated 4.1% against the US Dollar, 1.1% the Pound Sterling and 0.9% against the Euro.
Gold (down 6.9% in US Dollar terms) fell sharply to almost erase its positive returns May’s positive returns while Platinum was down 9.3% in US Dollar terms and Oil gained 8.4% in US Dollar terms.
