There is indeed a new vibe at the Joburg Indaba this year, one driven in part by gold's record run and rebound in PGM prices. This vibe has rippled into the JSE and the rand's performance.
Former Harmony Gold CEO and mega-mining personality Bernard Swanepoel summed it up on Wednesday, 8 October 2025, with his opening remarks at the Joburg Mining Indaba.
"There's a vibe," he said -- and indeed there is a new vibe these days rippling through the South African mining industry, and it's a good one for a change.
Hours before Swanepoel spoke, gold hit a record high of $4,000 an ounce -- just six months after it reached the milestone of $3,000 and double the price it was fetching two years ago.
This has been driven by a range of factors including the geopolitical turbulence and uncertainty unleashed by the second Trump administration in the US -- making the backdrop to this performance a double-edged sword for South Africa.
Meanwhile, prices for platinum group metals (PGMs) have been surging after years of languishing at depressed levels.
The "vibe" from this state of affairs has extended to the JSE, and as my colleague Stephen Grootes recently noted,...
