Jsedirect With Simon Brown

This week’s episode of JSE Direct is courtesy of OUTvest, our preferred supplier in retirement products. Simon Shares April was the best month for equity markets since 1987! Local ten year bonds are on a tear, just a week after we exited the World Government Bond Index the yields are back at pre-junk levels and even better as they trade below 8%. This is the search for yield playing out. If their mandate allows investors want yield, the rest they don't care about. This has also seen the Government Retail Bonds locally drop their April rate of 11.5% to 10% for May and likely will fall further in June. PMI shocker. The headline number was fine but that was due to some oddities. The real kicker was the business activity index that collapsed to an all-time low of 5.1 index points in April. During the 2008/9 crisis the lowest levels were low 30s. Oil bouncing higher, albeit at US$30 Brent is still over 50% off the January levels. Comair (JSE code: COM) went into business rescue less than a week after an update d