Trade choppy and rand volatile

The JSE closed slightly firmer on Tuesday as a late-afternoon dip in the rand supported miners and property stocks.

Trade was choppy for most of the day, with the local currency fairly volatile as concern grew over whether ratings agency Moody’s would downgrade the country’s local currency rating in November. This followed a report on Monday in which Moody’s described Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s medium-term budget policy statement as “credit negative”.

Mining stocks were broadly positive despite sluggish metal prices.

In evening trade, the gold price was 0.45% lower at $1,270.36 an ounce and platinum had lost 0.30%, to $917.

The all share closed 0.17% higher at 58,980.1 points after briefly crossing the 59,000-point level earlier.

Platinums rose 1.61%, resources 0.89%, property 0.39% and financials 0.26%. Food and drug retailers shed 0.77%, general retailers 0.56% and banks, 0.39%.

Anglo American gained 1.3%, to R265.09 and BHP 0.9%, to R255.27.

Sasol jumped 2.04%, to R413.67, despite Brent crude being 0.55% lower at $60.53 a barrel.

Rand hedge British American Tobacco lost 0.79%, to R910 but Richemont gained 0.73%, to R130.34.

Harmony Gold dropped 1.67%, to R24.19, but Sibanye-Stillwater gained 1.16%, to R18.31.

Lonmin gained 5.07%, to R19.48, Impala Platinum 3.21%, to R39.22 and Jubilee 1.27%, to 80c.

FirstRand shed 1.06%, to R51.25 and Nedbank 0.30%, to R207.37.

At 6.16pm, the rand was at R14.1356 to the dollar, from Monday’s R14.0641.

Moody’s is set to announce the result of its latest review on SA’s credit rating on November 24, with SA on “negative watch”.

Although Moody’s did not say it will wait until after the ANC conference in December before announcing a downgrade, analysts believe this may be the case. This could explain the rand’s relatively subdued reaction to the impending review.

Domestic bonds were steady, with the yield on the R186 at 9.100%, from 9.075%.

The top 40 Alsi futures index gained 0.59%, to a record 53‚342 points. The number of contracts traded was 17‚183, from Monday’s 18‚608.