South African traders today dismissed fears of a "Mandela crash" when the icon dies, after steep selloffs hit the rand and Africa's largest stock exchange.
The 94-year-old critically ill statesman has not been involved in politics for more than a decade.
But that has not stopped some drawing a line between his hospitalisation and recent market weakness.
As Mandela's condition worsened yesterday, local news outlets screamed headlines like "Rand hit by Mandela health fears."
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is down around nine percent this month and the rand has lost 1.6 per cent against the dollar since Mandela was hospitalised on June 8.
But traders said suggestions that any link to Mandela's death was overblown.
Adriaan du Toit, a strategist at Citi, said any Mandela-fuelled sell-off was "not fundamentally supported," because of his "negligible" impact on policy.
Mandela remains a moral beacon which all South African leaders are now compared to, but even during his 1994 to 1999 presidency he was more occupied with reconciliation than economic policy.
That has not stopped speculation that investors are concerned about political risk and even potential unrest when Mandela dies.
"A lot of the rhetoric around a risk to the rand and the South African economy due to Madiba's illness is largely unfounded," said Mohammed Nalla of Nedbank Capital.
Nalla said weakness in South African markets had more to do with global events: The US Federal Reserve scaling back asset purchases and weak South African economic data.
The Fed's announcement that it will reel in trillions of dollars doled out to stimulate the US economy has sucked the life out of many emerging markets.
With the Fed retreating from the market, many investors have shifted cash from places like South Africa to the relative safe havens of US stocks, bonds and the dollar.
Some suggested that investors may be simply trying to pre-empt any eventual sell-off, but others pointed to a long trend of weakness in the South African economy.
Africa's wealthiest economy grew by just 0.9 per cent in the first quarter.
Unemployment of around 25 percent, violent mining strikes, a widening budget deficit and painfully high inflation have all taken a toll on sentiment.
