The weekend’s news was dominated by reports of the second-largest banking failure in US history. Those are not the headlines that anyone in financial services wants to see, as there are inevitably jitters throughout the investor community whenever an event occurs that sucks liquidity out of the market.
The Federal Reserve has been acting as a sponge for months now, mopping up excess liquidity and moving profits from the hands of equity investors into those of debt investors. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the interest rate cycle in the US drives rates across the world. South African investors certainly haven’t been immune to the impact of higher rates not just on valuations but also on net profits as floating-rate debt becomes more expensive...