End of an era for R90 billion state-owned company, and Nvidia’s $442 billion victory lap

The rand weakened slightly yesterday and was trading at R16 against the US dollar on Friday, 28 August 2026, still one of its strongest levels this year.

Local equities remained subdued and largely unchanged, with the JSE All Share Index easing 0.01% and the Top 40 Index down 0.15%.

South Africa’s producer price inflation slowed to 5.7% year-on-year in July, down from 7.5% in June and beating market estimates of 6.1%.

Sasol faced an unplanned outage at its Natref facility, curbing the supply of jet fuel to OR Tambo International Airport and forcing airlines to activate contingency plans.

Wall Street equities strengthened on the back of technology shares, with Nvidia surging 8.7% after forecasting 70% revenue growth by 2028.

However, rate expectations remain unsettled ahead of Federal Chair Kevin Wall’s address at the Jackson Hole symposium.

Core inflation in Japan accelerated for the third consecutive month, increasing the prospects of policy tightening by the Bank of Japan in early September.

In commodities, gold eased to $4,583.96/oz ahead of the Jackson Hole address, while the price of Brent crude oil rose to $88.35 per barrel.

Risk premium remains high due to US-Iran uncertainty, with US President Donald Trump saying no negotiations were ongoing after introducing fresh sanctions earlier this week.

On Friday morning, the rand was trading at R16 to the US dollar, R18.63 to the euro, and R21.74 to the British pound.

Important finance and investing news

End of an era for R90 billion state-owned company: The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has announced its intention to introduce private shareholding for the first time in its 86-year history, in a bid to re-industrialise South Africa’s economy. [BusinessDay]

Nvidia beating the odds: Nvidia has broken its post-earnings day curse, with its shares jumping 8.74% in one day. Six of the American chipmaker’s past eight post-earnings trading sessions saw its shares slide amid uncertainty about AI profitability and future chip demand. [Wall Street Journal]

Alphabet says goodbye to $700 billion: Google owner Alphabet has seen its stock drop more than 15% from its May peak, erasing more than $700 billion from the company’s market value. After leading the Magnificent 7 for the past 16 months, concerns are now rising over the company’s escalating AI bills. [Semafor]

ANC under fire over undeclared donations: The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has questioned the ANC on its failure to correctly declare more than R15 million in donations. The country’s ruling party was omitted from the latest IEC report on political funding due to non-compliant disclosures. [EWN]

Landmark victory for Anthropic: A United States judge has blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of AI company Anthropic, after the company alleged that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority in designating Anthropic a national security risk. [Reuters]