Inside Meta’s $17.1 billion social media settlement, and cheaper tech repairs on the cards for South Africans

The rand remained below the R16/USD mark for a large part of the past week, but weakened on Friday, 28 August, feeling the pressure of a stronger US dollar.

However, local equity markets ended the week in green, with both the All Share Index and the Top 40 Index gaining on Friday.

Local data releases to look forward to this upcoming week include the Residential Property Price Index Report for April and the Electricity generated and available for distribution for July.

Statistics South Africa will release both publications on Thursday, 3 September 2026.

Investors can also expect several local company results this week, including Shoprite, Bidvest, Sasol, Sibanye-Stillwater, Aspen Pharmacare, Discovery, and Impala Platinum.

In US markets, the heavy tech earnings wave from Nvidia, Salesforce, and Marvell has concluded.

The US earnings calendar will now shift to a lighter post-labour-day slowdown, featuring upcoming reports from enterprise and software names like UiPath heading into early September.

In commodities markets, Crude oil holds near $83 to $88 per barrel, while gold was trading around $4,454 per ounce at the close of the week.

Important finance and investing news

South Korea’s mandatory mock trading scares off day traders: Korean investors must download a Windows-only program on PCs and spend at least an hour a day learning leveraged trading with virtual cash. This mock trading course is becoming an effective way for South Korea to cool investor fervour over risky products. [Bloomberg]

The United States needs a shock: It may take a “shock” to push Americans to demand economic policy change on state debt, with the current Iran conflict considered a “mini-shock”. The US national debt surpassed $40 trillion for the first time recently. [Wall Street Journal]

Competition Commission crackdown could lower prices for tech repairs: The competition watchdog’s new draft guidelines aim to promote effective competition in the electronic goods aftermarket, with the goal of lowering repair costs, giving consumers more choices, extending the lifespan of electronic goods, and reducing e-waste. [BusinessDay]

Inside Meta’s $17.1 billion social media settlement: Meta’s chief legal officer reportedly travelled to Nashville to meet with lawyers for about a dozen states to broker an enormous settlement. This came after Meta had already suffered losses in court over claims that it created addictive products that harmed young users. [New York Times]

Anthropic snags $45 billion from Google and Microsoft: Nscale was in talks to rent AI computing capacity from Google and Microsoft for the company’s massive data centre project in West Virginia. The lease ultimately went to Anthropic. [Semafor]