The shares that made the JSE a global star have turned into its biggest drag. South Africa's gold and platinum miners have tumbled, and with them the whole market: the mining and metals index has plunged 23% over the past three months, while the broader All Share is down 3.3%, its worst quarter in more than two years.
From record highs to a hard fall
The turn traces back to the Iran war. Precious-metal prices dropped from all-time highs, and a strong US dollar, propped up by a cautious Federal Reserve, piled on the pressure. That unwound a remarkable run: between early 2024 and February this year, the market had soared 78% in dollar terms, outpacing peers around the world. The heaviest fallers this quarter were the big names, with Gold Fields down 27%, Valterra Platinum off 20% and AngloGold Ashanti down 19%. Telecoms group MTN and banks FirstRand and Capitec were among the few holding the line.
Cheap, stable, and ignored
Here is the part that does not fit the script. On almost every other measure South Africa looks attractive. Local shares now trade about 19% below their emerging-market peers, a discount that has widened sharply from 11% in September last year. Nine in ten local fund managers told Bank of America they see more to buy than to sell, the most bullish reading since 2009. Yet just half are outright positive on the market, down from 88% before the Iran war, and not one is keen on commodity stocks.
The money is voting with its feet: South African equities have seen outflows in three of the last four months. "Commodity bulls have disappeared as quickly as they came," said Bank of America strategist Andreas Bruckner. As Vontobel's Marc Bindschaedler put it, the country's economic data is good or even better than expected, "nice music, but no-one listens to it anymore". With global cash chasing AI bets elsewhere, South Africa's problem is not its numbers, it is getting anyone to look.
