JSE gains are a thin veneer for coming trouble

South African stocks are heading for the best weekly rally since January 11, but don’t be fooled by the apparent momentum. The path of least resistance leads down.

The JSE all share index has added 2.1% in the past five days, with its 50-day moving average looking to cross above the 100-day mean. That’s made equities look resilient even as a crisis at  Eskom fuels a sell-off in the rand and government bonds.

But look deeper and stocks are as vulnerable to the operational and financial troubles at Eskom as the rand and debt are. Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s assurances that a plan to split the utility into three would address current problems, the threat of blackouts hampering economic activity remains.

“Even if the utility’s debt were all magically paid off tomorrow, SA would still have a shortage of electricity,” said George Herman, chief investment officer at Citadel Investment. “Industrial, retail, construction and domestic property stocks will face dramatic headwinds moving forward because of the electricity blackouts,”

Meanwhile, local traders are making short-term gains by betting on stocks that benefit from the rand’s weakness. That’s little consolation to global investors who have lost 4.6% in dollar terms in the past two weeks.