Naspers rise fails to prop up JSE

Gains by market heavyweight Naspers failed to keep the JSE in positive territory on Wednesday, with global markets broadly weaker. Mining and energy shares came under pressure.

Broad selling of base metals followed concerns over slowing growth in the Chinese economy, with data this week showing a slowdown in industrial production and fixed-asset investment, said SP Angel analysts.

Domestically, Naspers gained 1.95% to R3,661.42, a record high, after Tencent‚ in which it owns about a third‚ reported that third-quarter net profit rose nearly 70%.

Retailers were not lifted by earlier upbeat local data. Retail sales grew at the same rate of 5.4% year on year in September as in August, exceeding a consensus forecast of 4.5%.

Despite the month-on-month falls in mining and manufacturing output, it looked as if the economy enjoyed reasonably strong growth over the third quarter as a whole, Capital Economics analysts said.

The all share closed 0.56% lower at 59‚185.20 points and the blue-chip top 40 lost 0.51%. Platinums shed 2.46%‚ resources 2.26%‚ food and drug retailers 0.91%‚ general retailers 0.88% and banks 0.80%. The gold index gained 1.5% and industrials 0.11%.

Anglo American lost 3.06% to R269 and BHP 2.61% to R257. Harmony rose 3.12% to R26.15‚ while Impala Platinum shed 1.62% to R36.50.

Standard Bank dropped 1.45% to R162.79. Investec plc was 0.39% lower at R95.85 ahead of interim results on Thursday. Annual operating profit increased 18.5% to end-March.

Netcare slumped 6.73% to R23.55. It said earlier that it expected full-year adjusted headline earnings per share to fall 27.5%. Life Healthcare also took a hit‚ shedding 4.01% to R24.63. Mediclinic lost 0.94% to R111.44. It is set to release interim results on Thursday .

At 6.16pm‚ the Dow was off 0.37%, the Nasdaq 0.4% and the FTSE 100, 0.63%. The CAC 40 lost 0.51% and the DAX 30 declined 0.87%. At the same time, platinum had gained 0.53% to $931.42/oz and gold was off 0.14% at $1‚277.96/oz‚ while Brent crude had added 0.78% to $61.71 a barrel.

The top-40 Alsi futures index declined 0.16%, to 53‚590 points.

The number of contracts traded was 29‚632 from Tuesday’s 22‚558.