All share index soft as rand firms
The all share closed softer on Tuesday, after the rand once again gave direction to the local bourse by weighing on currency-sensitive stocks.
The rand firmed to R13.6875 to the dollar as offshore money flowed into the bond market for the second day‚ despite Friday’s downgrade of SA’s local currency rating by S&P Global Ratings. The JSE also tracked buoyant global markets. Local retailers gained despite weak data.
The RMB/BER business confidence index showed confidence dropped from 35 points in the third quarter to 34 in the fourth quarter of 2017. The index essentially flatlined, but the retail confidence sub-component dropped 9 points to 29 — a level last seen 18 months ago. Clothing retailers fared particularly badly in the fourth quarter, with food retailers struggling, although sentiment among retailers of durable consumer goods improved, said RMB chief economist Ettienne le Roux.
The all share closed 0.12% lower at 60‚082.80 points and the blue-chip top 40 lost 0.31%. The platinum index dropped 2.61%‚ resources 2.08% and property 0.03%. Food and drug retailers rose 3.11%‚ general retailers 3.05%‚ banks 1.78% and financials 1%.
Anglo American ended the day 3.5% lower at R254.44 and BHP shed 3.21% at R249.32. Harmony was 0.54% lower at R24, while Impala Platinum shed 6.6%, to R40.87.
Richemont lost 2.58%, to R118.03 and BAT 1.83% to R901.43.
Barclays Africa led the big banks higher‚ gaining 2.77% to R158.89 with FirstRand gaining 1.75% to R56.27. MMI Holdings added 2.25% at R19.99.
Spar jumped 5.03% to R193‚ Tiger Brands gained 3.41% to R410.52, Mr Price 4.24% to R214.95, and TFG 4.95% to end at R163.38.
Naspers shed 0.36% to R3‚780. The group will announce its interim results on Wednesday.
At 5.35pm‚ the Dow was up 0.34%. In Europe‚ the FTSE 100 was up 0.87%‚ the CAC 40, 0.53% and the DAX 30, 0.35%.
At the same time‚ platinum gained 0.35% to $952.51/oz‚ while gold was flat at $1‚294.50/oz. Brent crude was off 0.06% at $63.64 a barrel.
The top-40 Alsi futures index was off 0.22% to 53‚982 points. The number of contracts traded was 21‚137, from Monday’s 18‚094.