Fiscal D4

The balance you asked for D4b

The brief asked for “current account surplus or deficit (the primary balance)” — two different measures joined by the phrasing. Resolved 2026-08-30: the fiscal balance is the ask — surplus or deficit, with debt to GDP — so the primary balance is D4b’s headline and leads this page’s board group. The external current account stays below as context: it was never the ask, but it is the counterpart the rand and capital-flow numbers move against.

–Neutral -0.72% of GDP for calendar 2024, against -0.53% in 2023. An annual series; the last print is 667 days old and nothing new is possible before the next fiscal publication. The source was read again this run and returned the same figures. Nothing moved and nothing could. Read it beside your debt ratio, and do not mistake its silence for calm.

Is the debt path stabilising? D4a

▼Bearish 78.0% at Q2 2026, unchanged: +2.77% on Q1's 75.9% and +1.30% on a year earlier. The September Bulletin landed on 29 September, and the recompute from the Reserve Bank's codes reproduced 78.0 with no revision. The ratio is rising. The Bulletin's release did not move your Q2, so bearish stands on what the number says. The recompute reads the same Reserve Bank codes again and is not an independent second source; the check that would count is National Treasury's own figure, published with the budget documents.

Is revenue keeping pace? D4c

▲Bullish R819.78bn collected five months into FY2026/27, from the August statement and unchanged; September's is due at the end of October. Against R759.58bn at the same point of FY2025/26, the pace is +7.93%, up from +7.30% after four months. Measured the way you asked, against the same point of the previous fiscal year, revenue is running eight per cent ahead, and the margin widened in August. It is still the one fiscal line on your board working in your favour.

Do real yields say the market believes it? D4d

–Neutral 4.48% at 2026-09-30, quoted from scripts/derived.mjs: nominal 8.98% less September inflation of 4.5%. The reading was 4.41% at the August join. The join moved forward a month with the September inflation print, and the real yield rose 7bps. The nominal leg did it: 8.98% at the end of September against 8.81% at the end of August, more than offsetting a tenth more inflation. A real long yield near four and a half per cent is still a steep price for money. Neutral.

Is foreign capital arriving? D4e

–Neutral -R1.92bn in Q2 2026, from the September Bulletin and unchanged, against +R23.06bn in Q1 and +R1.87bn a year earlier. A small net outflow on the financial account. Neutral. The capital arriving in Q1 did not arrive in Q2, but a two-billion-rand outflow is close to balance and not a flight. It is a statement about the quarter that ended in June; the Federal Reserve's September rise is not in it yet.