You know how it is with CEOs. One day they’re all cuddly and loveable, bedding down on the streets in a display of bonhomie and unity as part of a radio station charity drive; next, they’re delivering a damning vote of no confidence on the local economy and casting around for somewhere else to spend their cash. At least, that’s how it might look from the trenches. No sooner had the pavement cooled on the Big CEO Sleepout -- a controversial awareness-raising evening in which business leaders sleep on the streets -- than market analyists from Mercantec released news that its quarterly CEO Confidence Index had hit an all-time low.

The index, which was started in 2009 and is based on a survey of 1 000 CEOs, peaked in Q1 2012 and has been in more or less steady decline since then: there was massive labour unrest in the mining sector culminating in the Marikana massacre. A neutral score is considered to be 50 points -- it currently stands at 42.2 points, meaning most CEOs are pessimistic on growth and trading conditions in the near future.