S&P downgrade hammers rand

The rand fell 27c to the dollar within minutes of the announcement on Friday that S&P Global Ratings had downgraded the country’s local currency debt to subinvestment grade.

The ratings agency sent out a stark warning to the government to get its house in order, with state-owned companies the biggest contributor to the downgrade.

Moody’s, which also released the result of its latest review on Friday, did not alter the country’s rating but placed it on review for a downgrade, which will probably come in February after the budget speech.

At 12.32am on Saturday the rand was at R14.15 to the dollar from Thursday’s R13.88.

The JSE all share was little changed in mixed trade on Friday, as banks and financials retreated after the Reserve Bank kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday. The all share closed 0.04% up at 60,324 points and the blue-chip top 40 ended the day flat.

Miners were higher, with the gold price flat at $1,288.69, but the platinum price rose 0.4% to $940.8/oz.

Retailers rallied on Black Friday, while the property index ended the day marginally lower. The platinum index rose 2.3%, general retailers 0.87%, resources 0.66% and the gold index 0.62%. Banks shed 1.12%, financials 0.57% and property 0.18%.

The all share index ended the week 0.33% higher, its eighth consecutive week of gains. The index has added 19.09% so far in 2017.

Impala Platinum (Implats) continued its winning streak as former Zimbabwean vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn in as the country’s new president. Implats, which has mining interests in Zimbabwe, gained 5.88% to R45, bringing total gains for the week to 21.1%.

Woolworths stood out in the retail sector, jumping 4.18% to R57.57. It has suffered a torrid few months and is 18.9% lower for the year.

Liberty Holdings ended the day 1.07% higher at R115. It said earlier that long-term insurance new business grew 6% in the nine-month period to end-September.

Standard Bank gave up 1.4% to R168.30 and Barclays Africa shed 1.3% to end at R151.30.

The top-40 Alsi futures index lost 0.11% to 54,371 points on Friday.