South Africa’s ticking time bomb, and Jeff Bezos wants a piece of Liverpool FC

The rand held steady on Tuesday, 11 August, with the local currency remaining around its strongest level in five months.

The rand’s relative stability came despite the release of South Africa’s second-quarter employment data on Tuesday, which showed that unemployment rose to 33.6%.

Tuesday also brought news that South Africa’s manufacturing output fell 1.7% year-on-year in June, continuing a 4.4% drop in May.

Along with the rand, the JSE remained strong on Tuesday, with the All Share Index up 1.92%. Continuing the trend from earlier this week, JSE-listed miners were the biggest winners on Tuesday.

The local bourse’s strength stood in contrast to international indices, which took a beating on Tuesday.

Wall Street closed lower amid renewed tensions between the United States and Iran and fresh scrutiny of the artificial intelligence (AI) capital-spending cycle. 

This saw the NASDAQ end 0.33% weaker, dragged down by heavyweight chipmakers such as Intel and Nvidia.  The S&P 500 shed 0.32%, while the Dow gave up 0.34%.

In contrast, Citadel Global managing director Bianca Botes said the mood is decisively risk-on in Asia, led by semiconductors and traders shrugging off the softer lead from Wall Street. 

The KOSPI surged 4.68% in early trade on Wednesday morning as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics powered the chip complex. The Nikkei is up 0.43%.

In commodities markets, the Brent crude oil price firmed to $89.72/barrel, up almost 1%.

This comes as negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved and Tehran and Washington trade demands over reparations. 

This also saw gold strengthen to $4,404/ounce, gaining 0.83%. The US Dollar Index is holding steady at around the 99.9 mark.

The rand is still holding a steady-to-firmer tone on Wednesday morning, edging higher against all three majors in early trade, but remains in a narrow range. 

The local currency is currently trading at R16.19 against the US dollar, R18.68 against the euro, and R21.86 against the British pound.

Important finance and investing news

Jeff Bezos buying a stake in Liverpool: A consortium of investors that includes Jeff Bezos is closing in on a deal to buy a minority stake in Liverpool Football Club from Fenway Sports Group. [Wall Street Journal]

South Africa is getting a new platinum mine: Southern Palladium secured a 30-year mining right for its Bengwenyama complex. The right covers over 5,000 hectares in Limpopo and permits the mining of PGMs, copper, chrome, cobalt, silver, and nickel. [BusinessDay]

Ticking time bomb: COSATU has warned that South Africa is sitting on a ticking time bomb after Stats SA revealed the country’s latest unemployment data. The data showed unemployment rising to 33.6%. The union said it is only a matter of time until something breaks unless jobs are created. [EWN]

Google shuts down major service: Google will begin shutting down Google Assistant on mobile devices and is replacing it with Gemini from 4 September. This comes as the company continues to consolidate its AI efforts around Gemini, which is now used by more than a billion people every month. [Yahoo Finance] 

Nvidia and Wall Street team up: Nvidia has teamed up with a range of Wall Street institutions to create a $500 billion plan to subsidise financing for computer chips. This comes as Nvidia’s smaller customers increasingly struggle to afford its costly GPUs. [Wall Street Journal]