Absa Investments Chief Investment Officer Ricardo Smith: South African fiscal discipline is a ray of hope amid turmoil

Absa Investments Chief Investment Officer Ricardo Smith said South Africa had decoupled from rising interest rates in major economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom as yields compressed over the past two years. The 10-year government bond yield remained above 9%. Fiscal consolidation and debt control had led to some credit rating upgrades for the country. He said the energy crisis, inflation and interest rates would ease in the short to medium term, but that the process was taking longer than expected. Market performance depended on earnings, and future listings by Anthropic and OpenAI would add transparency to AI trading.