Flood of results and economics data for JSE watchers on Thursday

Thursday is a busy day on both the JSE results and economics fronts.

Brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB Inbev) and cigarette maker British American Tobacco (BAT) are both scheduled to release their 2018 financial year results.

Other companies diarised to report on Thursday include paper and packaging group Mondi, platinum miner Impala, retailer Massmart, insurers Liberty and Santam, Cell’s largest shareholder Blue Label Telecoms, and restaurant franchiser Spur.

The SA Reserve Bank is scheduled to report January’s money supply and private sector credit extension figures at 8am. 

Stats SA will release January’s producer price index (PPI), used to calculate factory and farm gate inflation, at 11.30am.

January’s balance of trade figures will be released by Stats SA at 2pm.

Impala told shareholders on February 18 that it expected to report a return to profit for the six months to end-December, with headline earnings per share (HEPS) of about R3.10 compared with a headline loss of 21c in the matching period.

The fortunes of platinum group metals (PGMs) miners have been boosted by a strong run in the palladium price, which has convincingly overtaken gold in the first two months of 2019 after a neck-and-neck race in December.