{"id":376041,"date":"2020-02-21T14:55:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=376041"},"modified":"2020-02-21T14:55:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:55:50","slug":"investors-have-already-downgraded-south-africa-to-junk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/376041\/investors-have-already-downgraded-south-africa-to-junk\/","title":{"rendered":"Investors have already downgraded South Africa to junk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hard-currency bond investors have already downgraded South Africa to junk.<\/p>\n

The premium investors demand to the country\u2019s dollar debt rather than US Treasuries climbed above the emerging-market average in October, shortly before Moody\u2019s Investors Service cut the country\u2019s credit outlook to negative.<\/p>\n

It has now been above the mean for the longest period since Bloomberg started tracking the data in 1997.<\/p>\n

Previously, South Africa\u2019s sovereign spread crossed above the average for brief periods only during times of stress.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many investors expect South Africa to lose its last investment-grade rating. Their only question is when.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s is scheduled to review the assessment shortly after Finance Minister Tito Mboweni\u2019s key budget statement.<\/p>\n

To escape a downgrade, Mboweni would have to convince Moody\u2019s that the government is on track to restructure ailing state-owned companies, and has credible plans to curb the budget shortfall and fuel growth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are skeptical the government will make sufficient progress on fiscal consolidation in time for the 2020 budget,\u201d analysts at RBC Securities wrote in a note.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect Moody\u2019s to downgrade South Africa to non-investment grade in March, though the decision is likely to be a close call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others, including Morgan Stanley\u2019s Johannesburg-based Andrea Masia, expect the downgrade to be delayed until November.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Reasons to feel positive about South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard-currency bond investors have already downgraded South Africa to junk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":24779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-376041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376041","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=376041"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376051,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376041\/revisions\/376051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}