JSE firms as miners recoup losses and rand hedges gain

THE JSE gained yesterday after mining stocks and rand hedges were boosted by a weaker rand.

Miners reversed the losses they sustained on Monday.

The JSE all-share gained 0.28% to 51 432.2 points‚ while the blue-chip Top 40 was up 0.39%.

Diversified miners and gold shares stood out, with Anglo American gaining 5.45% to R167.90‚ BHP 4.04% to R193.79 and Glencore 4.52% to R47.40.

The resources index gained 2.83%‚ after losing 1.2% on Monday‚ while most other indices declined.

Banks lost 0.82%‚ financial stocks 0.76%‚ property 0.75% and industrial shares 0.1%. The gold index gained 2.01% and platinum 1.27%.

Gold Fields rose 2.86% to R46.72‚ AngloGold Ashanti 2.42% to R138.15 and Harmony 2.55% to R21.70.

Kumba Iron Ore gained 7.98% to R158.32 and Assore 5.21% to R182.01.

Anheuser-Busch InBev gained 0.75% and Richemont 0.78%.

Banks were the main drag on the JSE index‚ with Standard Bank down 1.17% to R142.12 and FirstRand 0.96% lower at R47.60.

Naspers – which gave up 0.83% on Monday – lost a further 0.33% to R2 608‚ despite market-pleasing final results released last week.

There have been calls from some investors for Naspers to spin off its 34% stake in Tencent‚ but reports on Monday suggested that management had no intention of doing so.

Lacklustre unemployment numbers for the first quarter of the year also put pressure on the rand‚ with Statistics SA data showing that formal-sector employment fell by 48 000 from the previous quarter. Year-on-year employment fell 0.6%. The focus is now on news from global central banks.