{"id":25732,"date":"2026-02-27T13:31:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=25732"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:31:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:31:25","slug":"simons-weekly-wrap-strong-2025-data-underpins-2026-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=25732","title":{"rendered":"Simon\u2019s weekly wrap: Strong 2025 data underpins 2026 optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>With the budget dominating the headlines, I spoke to Pooja Tanna of Perpetua Investment Managers about the bond market\u2019s reaction. She notes that lower long-term debt and a primary surplus mean reduced issuance, which should place further downward pressure on yields \u2014 already at their lowest levels since 2015.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1650088?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>I spoke with Aroni Chaudhuri of Coface Africa about the rand\u2019s recent strength. He believes it can persist, as the underlying drivers remain intact. While a firmer currency supports government finances and much of corporate South Africa, exporters are feeling the squeeze.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1649668?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>I chatted with Sylvester Kobo, deputy head of fixed income at STANLIB Asset Management, on SOE bonds and how they\u2019ve been doing recently. After many years of wide spreads and little investor appetite, things are improving, which is helping drive lower yields. I also asked where he sees good value for an income investor in the current environment.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1650561?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>I spoke with Jason Swartz of Old Mutual Investment Group about the strong 2025 data and asked how this feeds into the current year. He\u2019s optimistic that current trends will continue and believes most fears right now are more noise than significant threats.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1648798?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n                if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n                n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n                t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script>#Simons #weekly #wrap #Strong #data #underpins #optimism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the budget dominating the&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1059,5808,360,998,3696,361,362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}