2025 will likely go down as a watershed year for local investors, with our local market far outpacing its global counterparts on both the equity and fixed income fronts. Additionally, and somewhat more unexpectedly, has been the marked currency strength our local rand has experienced, gaining 12.2% against the dollar during 2025.
Over the past 15 years, South African equities have demonstrated notable resilience, delivering a negative calendar-year return only once during this period. This outcome, however, masks the reality that meaningful volatility and intra-year drawdowns have been a consistent feature of equity market returns.
