Asian ‘Trump slump’ likely to knock JSE down

The JSE is likely to join the dominoes tumbling on Thursday after the Trump administration said it intended carrying out its threat of a 25% tariff on an additional $200bn worth of Chinese imports.

Tencent, which accounts for the bulk of Naspers’s asset value, was down 3.38% to HK$343, and miner BHP was down 2.07% to A$34.36 in Sydney ahead of the JSE’s opening.

Mainland China’s Shanghai composite index was down 2.45%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 2.32%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.05%, and Australia’s ASX 200 was down 0.41%.

It is a jittery day for currencies too, with the Bank of England expected to raise its key rate to 0.75% from 0.5% at 1pm South African time.

The US Federal Reserve Bank held the ceiling of its target range at 2%, as expected, on Wednesday night.

The rand was trading at R13.27 to the dollar at 6.30am, a recovery from its R13.39 to the dollar low reached on Wednesday.

The rand was at R15.46 to the euro and R17.39 to the pound.

JSE Limited, the operator of the local bourse, said on July 17 it expected to report on Thursday its interim headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the six months to end-June grew by up to 40%.

The JSE said the jump in its earnings was mainly due to “cost control across the group, a one-off taxation credit of R31m as well as growth in revenue”.

Insurance group Liberty and recently listed Vivo Energy are also expected to release their interim results for the six months to end-June on Thursday.

Statistics SA is scheduled to release May’s factory utilisation figures at 11.30am and June’s electricity generation and consumption figures at 1pm.