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The global financial meltdown is in full swing worldwide.
Here in South Africa due to the prudent financial policies we have been pursuing the last few years has lead us to be relatively immune to the negative causes of the crash.
However Trevor Manuel has warned about secondary and knock on effects.
Basically if the rest of the world is deep in it, they won't have any money to come spend with South Africa and this by proxy will damage our economy and slow it down.
So we have been watching and waiting to see.
Today's papers report that there was a global stock market rebound yesterday.
Business Day reports that stocks that had been oversold were being bought back on optimism of further interest rate cuts. This had a follow through effect with the Rand recovering a bit, even though if anything we face interest rate rises rather than cuts.
In fact South African banks are now some of the most stable and well resourced in the world right now.
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International commentators were pessimistic and viewed the stock gains as a bounce rather than a full-on recovery, with warnings that the fundamental problems are still in play.
Business Report carried a similar story reporting that the Rand gained 5.3% before sliding back again. The JSE Top-40 index also gained before falling again.
The major factors at play seem to be the anticipation of further co-ordinated worldwide interest rate cuts.
The Times reported that even in all this turmoil there were some comforting facts.
Dividend yields are currently at their highest that they have been in 20 years at 4.8%, this conversely means that the market is very cheap at the moment, however it is still too early to tell when the market will start recovering.
iAfrica Business section ran a story on raising interest rates. The featured economist felt that a rate rise now would be disastrous and called for rates to be kept on hold until April next year, by which time the full effects of the new CPIX basket will be through.
The next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee will be on December 11th.
Business Day also came in with a story about the hotel industry, apparently globally hotels are taking a hit and their occupancy rates are way down, here in South Africa there was a small drop in occupancy which was offset by a rapidly rising room rate.
There may be slightly less people staying, but the rooms cost a bunch more.
In the Americas and Europe occupancy and room rates dropped.
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Business Report tells us that half of the car dealers in South Africa who are part of a franchise are not making a profit after car sales have crashed out.
The National Automobile Dealers Association reported that there are 100 000 unsold cars standing in car dealership lots across the country.
There are predictions of further slow downs and business closures.