It was another roller-coaster week for the South African economy and the rand as politics still played a role with the new cabinet announced late Sunday night.
It was also hard to pin down the rand as it was all over from the lowest point at below R18/$ to ending the week at R18.28/$.
Lisette IJssel de Schepper, chief economist at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), says both the Absa and S P Global PMIs came in below the neutral 50-point mark in June and it is concerning that both point to weak demand with lingering political uncertainty weighing on orders.
However, she says, Sundays announcement of the new cabinet brings much-needed certainty, although it is too soon to tell how these ministers will perform.
The cabinet is big, but this was perhaps to be expected given that many parties and people within parties had to be considered.
