Bourse turns around losing streak

The JSE closed firmer on Tuesday, reversing a four-day losing streak, as the weaker rand boosted resource and platinum stocks, while banks and financials recovered from Monday’s retreat after President Jacob Zuma’s recall back home of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan from an international investor roadshow.

The recall led to talk that Gordhan would be replaced. Concern about his position abated somewhat on Tuesday after he had said he “is still the finance minister” after a visit to Luthuli House.

The rand reached an intraday worst of R13.1111/$ before recovering to about R12.90 at the JSE’s close. The rand’s sharp retraction boosted mining stocks, despite relatively flat commodity prices.

Sasol and African Rainbow Minerals were the star performers. Industrials were also up on a strong performance from Naspers after Chinese internet giant Tencent, of which Naspers owns 34%, bought a 5% stake in the US company Tesla for $1.78bn.

The all share closed 1.13% higher at 52,309.20 and the blue-chip top 40 rose 1.24%. Platinums were up 3.06% and resources rose 2.45%. Industrials added 1.09%. General retailers dropped 1.59% and the gold index retreated 1.07%.

Sasol ended the day 5.89% higher at R382.21.

African Rainbow Minerals climbed 8.28% to R94.80. Industrial group Imperial Holdings increased 2.05% to R173.49.

Anglo American Platinum jumped 4.68% to R306.18.

Among banks, FirstRand dropped 0.75% to R50.21, but Standard Bank firmed 0.82% to R155.27. Capitec rose 1.38% to R807.

Among retailers, Woolworths shed 2.13% to R72.07 and Mr Price dropped 2.84% to R167.11. Telkom rallied 5.67% to R76.27. The yield on the R186 bond was unchanged at 8.72% in late trade.

At 5.44pm‚ the local near-dated top-40 Alsi futures index was 1.4% higher at 45,790 points. The number of contracts traded was 18,912 from Monday’s 22,224./With