{"id":869430,"date":"2026-08-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=869430"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:04:37","slug":"south-africas-new-gold-rush-is-already-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/869430\/south-africas-new-gold-rush-is-already-over\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s new gold rush is already over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s economy benefited significantly from the rise in gold and platinum prices in 2025, but that rise has now stopped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gold prices rose rapidly in 2025 as investors and central banks across the world increasingly purchased the metal following widespread global uncertainty kick-started by US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gold prices started the year at around $2,600 an ounce and breached the $4,000 threshold for the first time in October 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PGM metals have seen a massive rise in prices, which was caused by major supply chain issues in South Africa and questions over the transition to electric vehicles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange All Share then saw a near 40% surge in 2025, buoyed by South Africa’s gold and platinum miners, including Harmony Gold and Valterra Platinum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high prices also provided the National Treasury with a major fiscal windfall, allowing it to withdraw roughly R20 billion in planned tax hikes in the 2026 National Budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the rapid rise in prices in 2025 and a high base, the prices for gold and PGMs have started to decline, which has impacted miners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to BusinessTech, Morningstar South Africa Head of Investments Sean Neethling said gold and platinum miners are starting to be sold off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Harmony Gold and Valterra Platinum have only seen minor drops in their share prices, Gold Fields, Impala Platinum, Sibanye Stillwater and Northam Platinum have seen double-digit declines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still signs of life <\/h2>\n\n\n
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While the rush to single-commodity miners may be declining, Neethling said that there are still sectors and companies that remain attractive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that diversified miners on the JSE, including BHP and Anglo American, remain incredibly attractive at current valuation levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These miners did not benefit from the major gains seen in 2025 and are fairly priced for Morningstar, with Anglo American priced on the cheap side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that South Africa’s banks are also incredibly attractive, given their incredibly low P\/E ratios, with high upside for investors and high dividends on the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The low P\/Es are primarily linked to the traditional Big Four banks, being Nedbank, Standard Bank, Absa and FirstRand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitec, on the other hand, trades at a much higher multiple of around 33. However, Neethling said that Capitec’s growth outlook remains promising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, he noted that industrial stocks remain promising, while Naspers is also incredibly cheap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naspers, the owner of Takealot and, most importantly, a shareholder of Tencent, is pegged to China and offers an attractive price, especially as an offshore rand hedge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Neethling admitted that these stocks are primarily attractive for rand-based buyers, who are essentially forced buyers of JSE stocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For international investors with a far wider universe of investment options, South Africa is less attractive than other emerging markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that South Africa competes with an incredibly cheap Chinese market, as well as Taiwan and South Korea, which have benefited from technology investments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neethling added that South Africa is also not benefiting from a market that increasingly prioritises technology investments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if there were a rise in risk-on sentiment across global markets, South Africa would remain less attractive than other markets due to limited exposure to AI and technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rapid rise in resource prices in 2025 looks set to be a one-off, with South Africa not set for a large windfall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":656481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2085999717561823627","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2170155143804885","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18108559925331014","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[175,11544],"class_list":["post-869430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-jse","tag-morningstar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869430","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869455,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869430\/revisions\/869455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}