Digging For Nuggets Of Clarity

As companies start to release their half-and full-year results, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic becomes clear. Take some time to do your homework before you buy any stocks.

- Simon Brown

We’re back into earnings season on the JSE, with June mid-year and year-end results starting to be published. As such, we’re seeing the real impact of the hard government-imposed lockdown, which started in late March, on companies.

This gives investors a first true indication of how businesses performed during the lockdown, and perhaps a glimpse into how they’ll recover.

But first, there are two important points. Year-end results will only have one-quarter of lockdown included, while mid-year will cover a period that stretched over half the lockdown time. It is also very important that while we’re now in level-2 lockdown as a country, things remain risky and we could move back into stricter lockdowns – as we’ve seen happen in many other countries the world over who came out of hard lockdown ahead of South Africa.