Bank sector still under pressure

The JSE closed lower on Friday, with banks remaining under pressure in the wake of the announcement earlier in the week by the Competition Commission that it would refer 17 local and international banks to the tribunal for prosecution in connection with collusion and price-fixing in the foreign exchange market.

General retailers and platinums staged a strong comeback towards the close, but it was too late to turn around the market. Trading was thin ahead of the long weekend in the US, where markets will be closed for Presidents’ Day on Monday.

The all share closed 0.69% lower at 52,223.50 points and the blue-chip top 40 shed 0.90%. Banks dropped 1.26%, resources 0.88% and financials 0.77%. Platinums firmed 1.21%. After being down nearly 1% in early morning trade, general retailers recovered to close 0.76% higher.

The all share lost 0.88% in the week but is still up 3.1% in 2017.

Anglo American Platinum jumped 4.53% to R327.59 and Northam 3.66% to R53.50.

Standard Bank led the losses in the big four banks, closing 1.33% lower at R146.35. Barclays Africa gave up 1.28% to R160.89, FirstRand 1.11% to R51.90 and Investec 1.34% to R94.88.

Truworths leapt 5.66% to R89. On Thursday afternoon it reported unchanged sales for the 26 weeks ended December 25.

Woolworths was down 1.3% to R69.58 after reporting disappointing interim results on Thursday.

Shoprite shed 2.04% to R173.05 and Steinhoff 1.37% to R66.80.

The rand came off 18-month highs on Friday as the rally that characterised its performance for much of the past week lost some momentum. At 5.52pm, it was at R13.07 to the dollar from a previous close of R13.02.

Local bonds were also weaker, with the benchmark government R186 bond bid at 8.69% in late trade from 8.61% on Thursday.

Futures were lower in line with the JSE. The local near-dated top 40 Alsi futures index ended down 0.99% to 45,130 points with 24,030 contracts traded from Thursday’s 24,258.