{"id":209489,"date":"2017-11-07T13:06:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T11:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=209489"},"modified":"2017-11-07T13:06:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T11:06:43","slug":"the-stocks-to-buy-if-you-think-ramaphosa-will-win-or-lose-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/209489\/the-stocks-to-buy-if-you-think-ramaphosa-will-win-or-lose-in-december\/","title":{"rendered":"The stocks to buy if you think Ramaphosa will win or lose in December"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Buoyant commodities and a weaker currency have already made South African stocks a tasty treat for investors. Now, some are betting on politics to add to the flavor.<\/p>\n

Advancing raw-material prices and the rand\u2019s plunge to the lowest level this year boosted exporters\u2019 shares, sending the benchmark gauge in Johannesburg to a record.<\/p>\n

Yet, some money managers have remained doubtful on how far the rally could go given President Jacob Zuma\u2019s political maneuvers to sideline market-friendly opponents in the contest to succeed him.<\/p>\n

Those concerns were scaled back last week when the Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that Cyril Ramaphosa, the most popular choice among investors to follow Zuma as head of the African National Congress, is leading his rivals.<\/p>\n

A Ramaphosa victory at next month\u2019s ANC elective conference could increase expectations of improved economic management and reduced tolerance for corruption, boosting consumer confidence and the outlook for South Africa\u2019s financial sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think there will be a market-friendly outcome<\/strong> in the December conference, you must buy the banking shares and the retailers<\/strong>,\u201d said Wayne McCurrie, head of portfolio management at Ashburton Investments, a unit of Africa\u2019s second-largest bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think there\u2019s going to be a market unfriendly outcome<\/strong>, you would buy the mining companies and the big rand hedges, the big dual-listed<\/strong>\u00a0companies<\/strong> that gain from weakness in the currency,” he said.<\/p>\n

Waning political risk helped the main U.S. exchange-traded fund focusing on South Africa to receive the biggest weekly inflows in 19 months.<\/p>\n

Investors are paying the highest price in 13 months relative to estimated book values to own South African stocks.<\/p>\n

Johannesburg\u2019s benchmark index climbed 0.9% to a record 60,539.20 by 9:26 a.m. on Tuesday, rising for a third day and advancing for the ninth session out of the past 10.<\/p>\n

Technical charts signal the rally\u2019s momentum is steepening. The weekly relative strength index on the FTSE\/JSE Africa All Share Index has risen to the highest level since February 2013.<\/p>\n

While short-term traders may take the cross above the upper RSI threshold as a sign to sell, long-term investors may see it as a sign of continued strength.<\/p>\n

Historical price swings on the gauge, based on 30-day moves, have slid to the narrowest since June 2014. Volatility typically moves in the opposite direction to stocks.<\/p>\n

The directional movement index shows South African bulls have tamed the bears by the greatest degree since January 2013.<\/p>\n

Even so, short traders are convinced that any optimism over South African politics is overstated and that Johannesburg equities will fall.<\/p>\n

They added about $70 million of bearish positions in the main ETF last week, taking the bets on declining prices to a record high relative to outstanding shares of the fund, according to IHS Markit Ltd.<\/p>\n

The short positions had risen to 20% of the fund on Thursday, according to Blacklight Technology Partners data.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0Ramaphosa picks science and technology minister as presidential running mate<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buoyant commodities and a weaker currency have already made South African stocks a tasty treat for investors. Now, some are betting on politics to add to the flavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":158425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,12501],"class_list":["post-209489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-ramaphosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209503,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209489\/revisions\/209503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}