The South African Reserve Bank’s composite leading business cycle indicator fell by 0.4% month-on-month in June. The largest negative contributions to the movement in the composite leading business cycle indicator in June came from a deceleration in job advertisement space and a decline in the number of residential building plans approved.
Leading indicators provide investors with some sense on the direction of economic growth in the near-term. Economists Jeff Schutz says the latest leading business indicators doesn’t bode well for economic growth.
“The performance of the leading in climbing indicator has been very disappointing over the last couple of months and I think indicative of still very weak levels of domestic confidence and economic activity stemming from policy coherent. So unfortunately the outlook for GDP growth for this year and next year is certainly not looking good,” explains Schutz.
