In July the average prudential balanced portfolio returned 0.69% (June: 1.81%). Top performer for the second consecutive month is Metropolitan (1.13%); Stanlib (0.29%) takes the bottom spot. For the 3 month period Namibia Asset Management is top performer outperforming the ‘average’ by roughly 1.5%. On the other end of the scale Sanlam underperformed the ‘average’ by 1.1%.

The US economy appears to be out of the doldrums having had only two quarters of negative GDP growth since the beginning of 2011, year-on-year GPD recording 2.4% at the end of quarter 2 of 2014. The following graph, from Efficient Select newsletter of 18 August, provides this interesting review of the change in US GDP since 2005:

The Fed’s large scale asset purchase program has been reduced steadily from its high of US$ 90 bn per month, and will probably fade out by the end the end of the year or early in 2015.

Developing economies such as South Africa are still disappointing. These countries depend on the export of commodities to a significant extent and China has been one of, if not the biggest export market for their commodities. The restructuring of the Chinese economy will no doubt impact negatively on China’s demand for commodities and therefore on the South African and Namibian economies. Our economies are thus likely to grow sluggishly over the next year or two. South Africa is expected to grow at only 3% or less over the next 5 years, while the Namibian economy is expected to average around 4.5%.