The JSE released its financial results on Tuesday, which were self-described as a “resilient financial performance under challenging conditions”, but also revealed that 25 companies had delisted from the JSE in 2021, with just seven new listings in the same period.
This news was picked up by the business press and described as part of an ongoing existential threat to the JSE. This might well be true, unlike some of the old shibboleths that were again hauled out. Such as: this delisting crisis is all the JSE’s fault and they must fix it; there is far too much red tape; being listed is too expensive; it is all just cyclical and if only prices were higher more companies would flood on to the exchange.
An ever-increasing proportion of investing is now index-linked or index-benchmarked, to the obvious exclusion of the majority of listed companies. Tax-free savings accounts were meant to incentivise saving, but the benefit of the incentive has been disproportionately captured by the large institutions that are required to manage these funds, since self-managed stock portfolios were deliberately excluded from the product design.
𝙸 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 R100k 𝚒𝚗 5 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚞𝚗𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎! 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚝𝚘 Nelly_wa_Macha 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚖𝚊, 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜