Bourse buoyed as battle-beaten metals regain lustre

THE BOURSE closed firmer yesterday as battle-beaten platinum mining stocks regained some lustre and investors took cheer from an upbeat mood on global markets.

Lonmin jumped 6.79 percent to R100.39, Impala Platinum climbed 5.63 percent higher to R141.39 and Anglo American Platinum added 4.11 percent to R510.13.

The Top40 blue chip index closed 1.7 percent higher at 29 677.48 points and the broader all share index gained 1.47 percent to 33 603.35.

The platinum index, which has fallen almost 9 percent in the past four weeks, was 5.23 percent higher as investors dug for bargains among resources stocks that have clocked sharp losses over the last three months.

BHP Billiton and Anglo American also rose, up 3.17 percent at R230.07 and 2.92 percent at R271 respectively.

“Commodities is the story of the day, but it is from a heavily oversold position,” Desmond Reilly at PSG Securities said.

Most commodity prices were up fairly strongly, with platinum rising 2 percent and silver 4 percent, fuelled by hopes of another stimulus package for the debt-ridden euro zone.

“There will be a bit of follow through on this for the rest of the week barring any negative data,” Reilly said.

Telkom rebounded from Tuesday’s slump to its lowest in almost nine years, adding 2.5 percent to R20.50.

The government might sell stock in Africa’s biggest fixedline operator to facilitate a turnaround. On Monday the government blocked South Korean telecoms giant KT Corporation from buying a 20 percents stake in Telkom, saying the stake was going too cheap.

Absa posted muted gains of 0.66 percent to close at R151.90 on its decision to pay $1.2 billion (R10.2bn) for the store credit card business of unlisted domestic retailer Edcon.

A total of 234 million shares changed hands, according to preliminary data from the JSE, just below a 200-day moving average of about 250 million.