The fragility we are starting to see in certain areas of global private credit is primarily a US, and partly a European, issue. It is unlikely to have a direct contagion effect on SA private credit, for a number of reasons.
After years of easy money masking underlying fragilities, signs of strain are now emerging in parts of the private-credit ecosystem. Listed private-credit lenders are weakening, software‑linked borrowers are under pressure, and liquidity structures are being tested as refinancing becomes more challenging. While not dramatic, these shifts echo risks highlighted in earlier Unicorn articles and suggest the long cycle of abundant liquidity is slowly unravelling. Understanding how stress in private markets can spill into listed credit and equity is becoming increasingly important for portfolio management.
Trust your manager to confidently navigate volatile fixed income markets, even as the Middle East reshapes potential pathways.
STANLIB’s Multi-Asset team believes that the US could be inthe early stages of an early cyclical growth phase, for several reasons.
2025 was a year of exceptional returns for South African investors. As we enter 2026, our outlook is one of cautious optimism. The global investment environment is still buoyed by strong monetary and fiscal policy support, which continues to underpin equity markets. Earnings growth has been robust and economic resilience has persisted, despite the challenges posed by tariffs and geopolitical disruptions. Our team emphasises that policy support remains a cornerstone for equities, and the current cycle is unlikely to be derailed in the near term.
In a new uncertain world, after decades of underinvestment, European nations are embarking on an unprecedented military spending surge, creating a potential golden era globally for defence contractors. With NATO members raising commitments to target spend from 2% to at least 3% of GDP and an estimated €500 billion investment gap over the next decade, the sector offers compelling growth prospects despite an already strong year-to-date performance.
In episode six of our “The More You Know” vodcast series, Peter van der Ross, Deputy Head of STANLIB Multi-Asset, talks to Jeremy Maggs about the concerns about global bonds and why SA bonds are attracting interest, including from global investors. He also pinpoints which market areas are most appealing to the team now.
SA's economy feels sluggish, yet the JSE has been notching up record highs. Many investors are baffled by the fact that share prices are climbing while growth remains weak.
In the latest episode of The More You Know, the podcast from STANLIB Asset Management, two of the firm's senior multi-asset specialists, Warren Buhai and Peter van der Ross, explained why markets and economies so often disconnect, and what investors should do to respond.
In this episode of The More You Know, Chetan Ramlall explores how exponential data growth is transforming investment strategy.
With global data volumes nearing 200 zettabytes, the challenge is no longer access, but interpretation. Learn how systematic investing blends fundamentals, sentiment, and macro context to build smarter portfolios.
The future isn’t man versus machine. It’s man and machine.
Right now, the world is unsettled by inflation, war, fragile geopolitics, and dizzying stock markets that often defies logic and staying invested can feel like a test of nerve. But for STANLIB Asset Management's Head of Multi-Asset, Marius Oberholzer, this moment may be one of the most exciting and misread of his entire career.
In a world where financial markets shift overnight and the rules are constantly being rewritten, knowledge is more than power - it's a competitive advantage. The More You Know is our new vodcast series created to give investors the insights they need to navigate today's complex local and global market landscape. This is your essential guide to navigating uncertainty and turning insight into long-term investment success.
A reality check on the opacity, fragility and risks still lurking beneath private asset markets. We first warned in 2019 that many private markets – especially venture capital and private equity – were fuelled by easy money, not business fundamentals. Today, those risks have already started to crystallise. With inflated valuations being repriced – often painfully – and with liquidity still constrained, the full extent of the fall-out may still lie ahead. Given few exits and rising defaults, many investors are now discovering the volatility they thought they had avoided.
The current landscape for gold shares reveals a critical juncture, as the market grapples with volatility and changing dynamics. What drives the gold price is a widely-debated topic. While those drivers have varied in importance throughout its rich history, the linkage to the value of US dollar has carried through since the start of the Gold Standard Era.
The impact of recent trade policy changes will reverberate across the globe over time periods ranging from days to decades. While many longer-term implications are uncertain, some effects, such as the gradual rise in real yields on bonds and the secular pressure to increase defence spending, are already evident, allowing us to make informed longer-term portfolio adjustments.
The South African Rand (ZAR) is navigating a turbulent global financial landscape marked by significant uncertainty. As of 14 April 2025, the ZAR's performance against major currencies reflects a mix of domestic vulnerabilities, which began with a delayed budget in February. This was compounded by speculation regarding the tailwind (from an investor's perspective) of a fractious Government of National Unity (GNU) and the subsequent announcement of a new global tariff regime enacted by the US, without offsetting positive measures such as tax cuts and deregulation.
After a year of hands-on experience with STANLIB Multi-Asset’s bespoke AI tool MAISY (Multi-Asset AI System), we’ve gained unique insights into both the pitfalls and potential of this transformative technology.
Following a global wave of inflation and the steepest rate hiking cycle in memory, global bond yields are at levels not seen since before the Global Financial Crisis of 2007.
We warned of the fragility of the unicorns (unlisted companies with valuations over $1 billion) in our first take in 2019. Today the potential for sizeable corrections in unlisted assets looks even greater. Misallocated capital is likely to be destroyed as business models based on a historically low cost of capital are repriced.
Numbers don’t lie. An article published on citywire.co.za last week noted that in recent times the ‘Absolute Return’ funds available to South African institutional investors have largely failed to achieve their CPI-related performance targets.
Following several years of volatility and uncertainty, 2023 promises to bring more challenges and opportunities.
In STANLIB’s Multi-Strategy team we recognise that the future is best understood as a range of outcomes and is constantly evolving.
In this paper we unpack two commonly-held assumptions: that one must be in the market on its best days to have a chance of long-term outperformance, and that market timing is impossible.
On 23rd February 2022 the South African Minister of Finance changed the rules for local retirement funds by raising their maximum offshore allocation from 30% to 45%. The significance of this change can’t be overstated. In the STANLIB Multi-Strategy team, we believe that how South African investors respond to it could be the most important determinant of their returns over the next decade.
The first six months of 2022 were traumatic for investors. Just as the global economy was rebounding from the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February sowed chaos through financial and commodity markets. It raised risk premia and sharply exacerbated the existing inflationary pressure of a global recovery while supply chains were still recovering from the pandemic.
Market volatility has risen significantly over the last few years, with many factors driving the extremity of events that can very quickly shift market dynamics and the sensitivity of markets. It is critical to manage the risks associated with heightened volatility while still achieving the returns that investors desire.
Until monetary authorities provide clear guidance about future policy, volatility risks highlight the need for asset diversification in long-term investment portfolios.
In this podcast, Peter van der Ross, portfolio manager in the STANLIB Multi-Strategy team, argues that Emerging Markets (EMs) may struggle to outperform Developed Markets in 2022 because of issues facing China, which dominates the EM complex, and the likely strengthening of the US dollar as the Fed responds to inflation threats.
The pandemic and its aftermath have thrust policymakers into dangerous waters. Policymakers are currently sailing through a data fog, in which extremes in data points continue to plague traditional mathematical models. These models guide their management of the economy and determine the best course of action.
Against a backdrop of cyclical recovery and vaccine hope, investors in many equity markets this year would have seen stellar returns. But where to from here?
The strong performance of the local equity market since the lows of March 2020, relative to the lacklustre performance of the local economy, has raised investor questions.
Since COVID-19-related lockdowns became widespread globally in Q1 2020, bottlenecks have developed in various supply chains, including most commodity markets, to varying degrees. This, together with rising concern around inflationary risks driven by the combination of highly stimulative monetary and fiscal policies working together for the first time since the 1970s, has raised the question whether we have entered a new commodity super cycle.
STANLIB’s Multi-Strategy team explores the impact of the recent policy change implemented by the US Federal reserve
The STANLIB Absolute Returns team will be renamed the Multi-Strategy investment team.
The logistics, the costs and the availability of the Covid-19 vaccine bring significant challenges and complexity to a simple solution aimed at leading societies and economies back to health.
The Absolute Return team holds a positive outlook on South African banks, based on the following factors which we unpack in this article written by Vaughan Henkel.
The coronavirus pandemic has generated a new level of co-ordination between central banks and governments, with potentially profound consequences for the economy and markets.
In the middle of a global health care pandemic, with the economy on life support, the health care sector plays a defensive role in portfolio construction.
In February 2020, we assessed nominal South African Government Bonds (SAGBs) through our six-lens Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) framework.
In this article, Marius Oberholzer, Head of STANLIB's Absolute Returns team, provides a breakdown of their 2021 tactical asset allocation and thinking.
2020 has been an extraordinary year. Now is a pertinent time to reflect on the investment landscape and how key market events and dynamics have shifted and continue to shape our investing environment. In this final webinar in our spring/summer series, STANLIB Absolute Returns’ senior portfolio managers, Warren Buhai and David McNay, shared insightful views on markets and investing across the world as we head towards the end of a year marked by unforeseen change.
In this live-recorded webinar, STANLIB’s Head of Absolute Returns, Marius Oberholzer, and Senior Portfolio Manager, Peter van der Ross, give an update on their asset allocation views heading into the third quarter. The team also provide insights into what has driven their asset preferences and explaine the shift in their long-held SA bond view. They also expand on their scenario evaluation, which is key to their tactical process, and evaluate if this bounce is a “dead cat” or if their “V for victory” scenario is in play.
To help navigate these volatile and uncertain times, we have prepared insights from our economics team and perspectives of our various teams entrusted with managing your investments.
The twin pronged attack of slumping oil prices and a significant economic downturn due to the COVID- 19 induced shutdown is proving historic in its extent and speed.
Traditionally, government bonds are referred to as ‘risk-free’ assets. Much of modern financial theory, and indeed, the practical day-to-day workings of financial markets, depend on such a concept.
South African investors have enjoyed phenomenal returns over the last 2-3 decades, as local equity returns outpaced those of most equity markets around the world.
My fascination with financial markets has recently peaked to a level I last experienced around the late 1990s “dot-com” craze.
What will define markets in 2019? This outlook breaks down the key economic and political forces at play, offering insight into how absolute return strategies can navigate a shifting global landscape.
