An individual earning the average monthly wage in South Africa (just under R30 000 per month) would need to work approximately half an hour to afford one JSE Top 40 index tracker to get exposure to the index. This has only increased slightly since 2008. In the US, by comparison, stock price growth has dramatically exceeded wage growth since the global financial crisis (see here for a comparison of equity index returns). This highlights the relative affordability of domestic equity investment but also that wages and stocks have grown at a more comparable rate in South Africa.
Compiled by Oliver Guest
