JSE slips on Covid threat in Asia
The JSE tracked weaker Asian markets on Monday as the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic clouds the economic recovery progress. The local bourse closed at its worst level in a week, with the precious metals and mining index losing the most.
The JSE tracked weaker Asian markets on Monday as the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic clouds the economic recovery progress. The local bourse closed at its worst level in a week, with the precious metals and mining index losing the most.
Harmony Gold dropped the most in the precious metals sector, falling the most in a month — down 4.18% to R66.88. GoldFields fell 3.95% to R138.63, AngloGold Ashanti 3.85% to R310.73, Anglo American Platinum 2.88% to R2,100.19, Impala Platinum 2.80% to R275, DRD Gold 2.61% to R14.20, Sibanye-Stillwater 2.23% to R64.80 and Northam Platinum 2.09% to R262.11.
Equity markets had a weak start to the week with investors cautious as a pick-up in new Covid-19 cases in parts of Asia dampened optimism for recovery. Asian countries including India, Malaysia and Thailand were seeing a surge in Covid-19 numbers.
Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said at the weekend that the US economy was about to start growing more quickly.
RMB market analyst Siobhan Redford said: “Optimism for a broad and hastening recovery in the US should dominate sentiment; however, Asian markets have started the week in the red, perhaps as Covid-19-related concerns have moved closer to home.
“There have been no significant changes to fundamentals, with the bulls and the bears continuing to weigh up the resurgence of Covid-19 and tighter lockdown restrictions in parts of Europe, India and South America against an expected strong US economic rebound,” said Redford.
The JSE all share lost 1.08% to 66,463.17 points and the top 40 1.21%. Precious metals dropped 2.85%, resources 1.93%, industrial metals 1.70%, industrials 1.03% and listed property 0.41%. Retailers were flat. Banks gained 0.34%.
Earlier, the Shanghai Composite fell 1.09%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 0.86% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 0.77%.
At 5.25pm, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.28% weaker at 33,705.15 points. In Europe, the FTSE 100 had lost 0.33%, while France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX 30 were little changed.
At 5pm, the rand had strengthened 0.14% to R14.5738/$ and 0.11% to R17.3524/€, while it had weakened 0.30% to R20.0306/£. The euro was little changed at $1.1908. Gold lost 0.54% to $1,734.35/oz and platinum 2.05% to $1,176.36/oz. Brent crude was 0.98% firmer at $63.60 a barrel. tsobol@businesslive.co.za