The second quarter's headlines were mainly dominated by US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments regarding the withdrawal of the Fed's asset purchase programme; crucially it was the timing on the withdrawal that caused volatile global markets. In their June policy statement, the committee stated that "economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace only". It further stated "labour market conditions have shown further improvement... but the unemployment rate remains elevated". Following the meeting, Bernanke stated that if there were improvements in the labour market, "it would be appropriate to moderate the monthly pace of purchases later this year" and that they (the Fed) "would continue to reduce the pace of purchases in measured steps through the first half of next year, ending purchases around mid-year".

All commodities did not fare well during the quarter, crude oil prices took a tumble, and precious metals also fell sharply with the spot bullion declining by more 20%, hitting a three-year low in June. Base metals were negatively affected too by fears of a slowdown in China as the central bank tightened liquidity in the banking system.

Similar to the first quarter of this year, developed markets outperformed emerging markets. Developed markets had a positive (+0.8%) return in US dollar terms, while MSCI Emerging Markets actually declined (-8.0%). The worst performers were Brazil (-14.4%), Turkey (-13.7%) and Russia (-8.3%). The South African JSE was down -7.3% for the quarter. In developed markets, Japan outperformed (+4.6%), followed by Germany (+3.4%). The worst performing market was the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index, which was down -4.6%.

The JSE top performers on the economic group level for the quarter were healthcare (+13.2%), telecoms (+12.2%) and consumer services (+10.6%). The worst performing were basic materials (-13.7%), financials (-1.6%) and industrials (0.0%). Breaking it down further to sector level, the best performers in the quarter were media (+27.2%), personal goods (+21.5%) and pharmaceutical (+16.1%). The worst performers were gold mining (-33.5%), platinum (-23.9% and general mining (-10.8 %).

Following the stellar performance of the first quarter of (-9.1%), listed property disappointed this quarter, down -0.4%.

The NSX Local Index, a measure of the performance of the primary listed Namibian companies, weighed in with a return of +5.4% for the quarter, down from +7% in the first quarter. The best performing stock was Namibia Asset Managers (+22.6%), followed by FNB Namibia (+11.1%), Namibian Breweries (+6.6%) and Oryx Properties (+6.5%). The worst performer was Bidvest Namibia, which rose marginally by 1.3%.