Rand boosts banks and retailers
A firmer rand gave the JSE direction on Tuesday, with banks and retailers jumping as the local currency reached a two-and-a-half-year high against the dollar.
In general, locally focused stocks gained, with the JSE’s mid-cap and small-cap indices each up about 0.8%. Miners, under additional pressure from softer prices for most commodities, suffered.
Local data were positive, with mining output growth accelerating to 6.5% in November, beating a Trading Economics forecast of 4.8%. Although a solid increase, the longer-term prospects for the industry remained less certain due to the difficult operating environment, Nedbank Group Economic Unit analysts said.
Naspers also helped push the index into positive territory, gaining 2.34% to R3,684.39, in line with Chinese associate Tencent.
TFG, up 5.17% to R181, lifted the retail index after a trading update reflecting 17.1% turnover growth for the nine months to end-December.
The all share closed 0.68% higher at 60‚649.60 points and the blue-chip top 40 rose 0.65%.
Banks added 3.02%‚ property 2.42%‚ general retailers 2.26%‚ financials 2.05% and industrials 1.29%. The gold index shed 3.75%‚ resources 2.3%, and platinums 2.09%.
Anglo American lost 2.97% to R292.94, while Gold Fields slumped 4.19% to R53.11.
Sasol shed 1.81% to R451.04 as Brent crude lost 0.83% to $69.61 a barrel. Richemont dropped 0.92% to R113.07 and Anheuser-Busch InBev 1.37% to R1‚424.65.
Standard Bank rocketed 3.98% to R196‚ Barclays Africa 3.49% to R178 and FirstRand 2.59% to R63.09. Shoprite gained 3.29% to R220 but Woolworths slid 0.75% to R59.40.
Hyprop rose 1.73% to R113.80‚ Resilient 2.12% to R132.33, and Growthpoint 1.74% to R27.99.
The top 40 Alsi futures index closed 0.77% higher at 54‚276 points. The number of contracts traded was 12‚382, from Monday’s 10‚406.
At 5.40pm, the Dow was up 0.97% and the Nasdaq 0.9%, while European markets were mixed. The DAX 30 had gained 0.78% while the FTSE 100 had lost 0.21%. At the same time, platinum had gained 0.21% to $998.56 an ounce while gold had lost 0.36% to $1‚334.49.