International bourses lead JSE higher

THE JSE rebounded strongly this week, taking direction from buoyant overseas markets.

The All Share index was up a hefty 3% at 53 817.30 points in its biggest weekly gain since January. Banks and industrial stocks did the heavy lifting, as resource shares lagged in line with lower commodity prices.

The local share market also managed to finish positively on the month, which was marred by the controversial cabinet reshuffle in late March. Banking stocks ended on Friday at their best level since March 30, a day before Pravin Gordhan was sacked as finance minister.

Markets have so far been relatively resilient despite political shocks. The rand and local bonds staged strong recoveries after their recent lows.

The rand weakened to R13.95/$ in the week after the cabinet changes prompted S&P Global Ratings and Fitch to downgrade South Africa’s debt rating, while the yield on the benchmark R186 bond rose to highs of 9.20%.

Late on Friday, the rand was at R13.34/$, with the yield on the R186 note at 8.71%.

“Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba keeps talking the right talk, but will this save us from another junk rating,” asked Old Mutual Investment Group economist Tinyiko Ngwenya. “Moody’s is still likely to downgrade South Africa.”

Global sentiment was mostly positive after pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential race, beating rival antieuro Marine le Pen.

Better-than-expected US corporate earnings also helped lift sentiment, with the techheavy Nasdaq Composite hitting the 6 000 mark for the first time this week.

Meanwhile, growth in US GDP data for the first quarter underwhelmed on Friday, slowing to an annualised rate of 0.7% from 2.1% in the preceding period.