Naspers leads the market’s gains

After a spate of local and international data, the JSE closed slightly higher on Thursday, with market heavyweight Naspers leading the gains even as retailers slumped.

The calendar was a busy one, with the rising oil price and Middle East tension being closely watched, after the US withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran and threatened to re-impose sanctions.

Banks cheered the stronger rand, but retailers were lower, after local data pointed to subdued business activity and economic growth in the first quarter. The JSE’s small and midcap indices also fell. Counters in these indices are generally dependent on local economic conditions.

Local mining and manufacturing data disappointed, while losses in the mining sector were kept in check by a weaker dollar.

US consumer inflation earlier came in slightly lower than expected.

Notwithstanding the drop in mining production, 2018’s robust global growth and strong commodity prices should lend support to the sector, said Investec economist Lara Hodes.

The all share closed 0.16% higher at 58,005.60 points and the top 40 gained 0.42%.

Banks rose 1.05%, financials 0.4% and industrials 0.3%. The platinum index fell 3.6%, gold 2.82%, general retailers 2.59% and food and drug retailers 2.12%.

Naspers gained 3.54% to R3,185.08, tracking a 3% rise in Hong Kong associate Tencent.

Impala Platinum slumped 6.07% to R18.25. Nedbank jumped 2.27% to R307. MTN shed 0.52% to R123.58.

Rand hedge Anheuser-Busch InBev fell 4.82% to R1,179.78 on a stronger rand and after reporting reduced beer sales in the US in the first quarter of its financial year on Wednesday. British American Tobacco gave up 2.07% to R648.05. Steinhoff International slipped 3.87% to R1.74.

Datatec plummeted 9.33% to R19.72, after saying earlier it expected to report a headline loss per share of 20c for the year to end-February, an 11-fold decline.

At 5.40pm, the Dow was up 0.76% to 24,728.34 points, while in Europe the FTSE 100 had gained 0.57%, the DAX 30 0.56%, and the CAC 40 0.16%.

The top 40 Alsi futures index gained 0.74% to 52,025 points.