Banks offset fall in iron ore miners

The JSE was steady on Wednesday, as losses by mining stocks offset gains in most other indices.

There was quite a lot of news to give local stocks direction, with a number of large-cap stocks registering impressive movements.

Kumba Iron Ore led the losses, falling 4.94% to R452.46. The world’s largest producer, Vale, has been given permission by a Brazilian court to reopen an iron ore mine that was closed earlier this year.

Diversified miner BHP fell 3.03% to R339.48, having said earlier it had lowered its production forecasts for iron ore, as it grapples with a hurricane that hit Australia in March.

The all share added 0.01% at 58,908.3 points, while the top 40 fell 0.05%. Banks gained 1.19% and industrials 0.86%. But the resources index slid 2.23% on the day.

Earlier, sentiment was given a boost by news that the Chinese economy grew 6.4% in the three months to end-March, only slightly faster than the 6.3% expected by the market. Analysts cited much better-than-expected industrial production figures as a reason to be confident that Beijing’s stimulus measures are having an effect.

Locally, inflation came in better than expected, rising only 4.5% in March year on year compared with 4.6% expected by the market.

The Reserve Bank deems monetary policy to be accommodative, said Investec economist Kamilla Kaplan. “In view of this, and that inflation is set to rise towards the upper end of the target range from 2020, the prospect for an interest rate cut is diminished.”

Retail sales beat market expectations, rising 1.1% year on year in February, while the market had expected only 0.6% growth. This is encouraging, but growth remains modest and consumer confidence fragile, said Nedbank Group Economic Unit analysts.

Sibanye-Stillwater jumped 6.59% to R14.40. Earlier, a five-month strike at its gold operations came to an end.

Clicks shot up 3.99% to R184.07. It earlier reported that group turnover grew 6.2% in the six months to endFebruary. Diluted headline earnings per share grew 13.2% to 300.1c.

EOH added 12.98% to R22.80, extending its 55.23% surge on Tuesday. Its share has rocketed 130% in April.

Mediclinic gained 5.53% to R59.52. It said earlier that in constant currency terms group revenue had risen 3.5% in the year to end-March.

Comair was unchanged at R4.50. The airline is facing the prospect of a strike by some of its ground staff ahead of the busy Easter weekend.

Shortly after the JSE closed the Dow was flat at 26,434.08 points as was the FTSE 100; the CAC 40 had risen 0.64% and the DAX 30 0.62%. At the same time, gold was down 0.25% to $1,273.64/oz while platinum had risen 0.87% to $888.03. Brent crude was down 0.42% to $71.58 a barrel.