Market edges up in cautious trade after historic summit

THE JSE closed marginally higher yesterday with retailers and financial stocks leading the way amid cautious trade as global miners and platinum stocks were among those that declined.

Markets adopted a cautious view towards the historic summit between the US and North Korea as the agreements between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un still lacked some detail.

Volumes traded on the JSE were low for the second consecutive session as the market sought direction from global markets, which traded mostly flat or slightly weaker.

A probable interest-rate hike by the US Federal Reserve later today has added to the woes of emerging markets.

Allocation to US equities climbed 16 percentage points to a net 1% overweight, the first time investors surveyed have gone overweight in 15 months, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in the latest fund manager survey for May, released yesterday.

The most commonly cited tail risk to the markets was identified as a trade war (31%), followed by a hawkish policy mistake by the Fed (26%) and a eurozone/emerging-market debt crisis (23%).

The JSE all-share close 0.11% up at 58 207.8 points and the top 40 added 0.14%. Food and drug retailers rose 0.96%, financials 0.41% and industrials 0.33%.

The platinum index shed 1%, resources 0.66% and property 0.37%.

Anglo American slipped 2.07% to R321.59 and BHP 0.42% to R309.50.

Anheuser-Busch InBev rose 1.6% to R1 291.24.

British American Tobacco lost 0.41% to R653.73, after issuing a trading update.

Domestic bonds were weaker, with the benchmark R186 bid at 9.03% from 8.98%.

The Top 40 Alsi futures index lost 0.09% to 51 931 points. – BusinessLIVE