South African risk assets could no longer withstand the volatility being felt globally and fell alongside other markets in April. Given its strong commodity bias, South Africa has been a relative outperformer, but this ironic “safe haven” characteristic began unwinding as investor fears spilled over to local markets. The rand weakened significantly (supporting returns of global asset classes in rands) with continued pressure being felt in the local bond market as yields continued to rise. Given the weakness of the local currency the best performing asset classes for the month were global bonds and global property. That said, these asset classes fell in hard currency terms as rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and a global risk off sentiment hurt performance generally.

SA PROFILE PERFORMANCE