JSE could get a boost from BHP’s sale of shale assets to BP

BHP’s share gained nearly 3% in Sydney after announcing it was selling its US shale assets to BP for $10.8bn, which may be a good augur for the JSE’s mining shares on Friday.

Dow Jones reported BHP has spent about $40bn on its loss-making US shale ventures since 2011.

BHP closed 0.33% lower at R289.25 on Thursday. The JSE survived the ructions in global markets caused by Facebook’s crash unscathed, with Naspers rising 0.16% to R3,315.28 despite the US tech stock rout.

Facebook had recovered 1.13% to $178.25 on Friday morning, after closing 18.96% lower on Thursday.

In Hong Kong, Naspers’s associate Tencent was down 0.69% to HK$372.20.

The rand similarly survived Thursday’s ructions in emerging-market currencies after US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Turkey relatively unscathed.

Thursday’s range for the rand was a low of R13.09 and high of R13.26 to the dollar, and it was trading at R13.23 to the dollar, R15.42 to the euro and R17.35 to the pound at 6.30am on Friday morning.

The Turkish lira lost more than 2% to dollar after US President Donald Trump tweeted: “The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a great Christian, family man and wonderful human being. He is suffering greatly. This innocent man of faith should be released immediately!”