Chinese trade concessions lift JSE

The JSE pushed higher on Wednesday, recording broad-based gains, cheered by positive developments in US-China trade talks.

The rand found support after confirmation of China agreeing to resume soyabean imports and dropping tariffs on US vehicles. This improved prospects for a deal, analysts said, though the three-month truce was rather short given alll the issues.

The all share firmed 0.8% to 51,598.1 points and the top 40 0.82%. Banks rose 1.91%, platinums 1.97%, gold miners 2.47% and food and drug retailers 1.81%. Property stocks gave up 0.21%. But risk-events still hovered over markets as investors kept a wary eye on the no-confidence test for UK Prime Minister Theresa May as she tries to get her Tory party to accept her draft Brexit agreement.

The rand was firmer against the dollar, extending gains slightly in the afternoon after US consumer inflation came in far lower than expected. Concern about a US economic slowdown has stoked investor doubt about the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates in 2019 as high as it intimated.

Local data was slightly mixed. Consumer inflation climbed to 5.2% in November, slightly ahead of the Trading Economics consensus forecast of 5.1%. Retail sales data was positive, up 2.2% year on year in November versus a forecast of 1.8%.

Retail sales figures indicated a robust start to the fourth quarter of the year, but the inflation figures pointed to another interest-rate rise in the first quarter of 2019, said Capital Economics senior emerging-markets economist John Ashbourne.

Diversified miner BHP added 1.94% to R288, but Anglo American fell 0.63% to R295.66. Rand hedge AB InBev fell 1.23% to R1,017.23, British American Tobacco 0.73% to R492.57 and Richemont 0.72% to R92.53.

Gold Fields jumped 5.63% to R45.05. Earlier, the National Union of Mineworkers called off a six-week strike at the group’s South Deep mine.

Standard Bank rose 2.73% to R171.69, FirstRand 1.87% to R65.81 and Absa 1.28% to R156.42. Shoprite rose 3.44% to R187.53. Naspers added 0.21% to R2,857.15. Tencent’s subsidiary, Tencent Music, started trading as a separately listed company on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Telkom leapt 5.73% to R61.26, but MTN was flat, amid news that a Nigerian court had postponed until January a hearing on its alleged breach of that country’s financial regulations.

Shortly after the JSE closed, the Dow was up 1.07% to 24,626.04 points, while in Europe, the FTSE 100 had risen 1.09%, the CAC 40 2.14% and the DAX 30 1.37%.

At the same time, gold was up 0.19% at $1,245.21 an ounce and platinum 0.82% at $793.67. Brent crude was 0.42% higher at $60.83 a barrel.