JSE drops after Chinese data weighs on sentiment

The JSE was lower on Tuesday morning as Chinese stocks remained under pressure following disappointing economic data from China.

The country’s producer price index fell 0.8% in August, its sharpest fall since August 2016.

Earlier, the Shanghai Composite was down 0.12% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was flat and Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.35%.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 was down 0.23 %, France’s CAC 40 0.39% and Germany’s DAX 30 0.27%.

At 10.30am, the JSE had fallen 0.66% to 55,153.90 points and the top 40 was 0.58% lower. Banks were down 1.06% and platinum miners 3.04%.

Attacq was up 3.15% to R11.79 after it declared a dividend of 81.5c in the year to end-June, a 10.1% increase.

Rand Merchant Bank was down 1.58% to R117.63. It said on Tuesday that its headline earnings fell 7% to R3.8bn in the year to end-June.

Statistics SA is expected to release manufacturing production for July on Tuesday.

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