JSE edges a little lower as markets tread water

The JSE edged lower on Tuesday morning, with banks giving up a little of the 3% surge they saw on Monday.

Global markets had pushed convincingly higher on the first day of April, boosted by better-than-expected Chinese manufacturing data.

The local market, as well as the rand, were also cheering a decision by Moody’s Investors Service not to release its review of SA’s credit rating at the weekend.

At 10.02am on Tuesday, the all share was 0.2% lower at 56,994 points and the top 40 was 0.28% down. Food and drug retailers were down 1.8%, banks 0.71% and industrials 0.51%. Platinums added 1.47%.

At the same time gold was flat at $1,286.14/oz while platinum had lost 0.67% to $844.20. Brent crude was 0.19% lower at $69.02 a barrel.

There is little on Tuesday to give either global or local markets direction. On Wednesday, the UK Parliament will resume its series of Brexit votes, while US jobs numbers will also be closely watched.

Diversified miner Anglo American added 1.62% to R394.31.

Rand hedge AB InBev was up 1.22% to R1,198.61.

Lonmin slipped 2.67% to R13.50.

Woolworths lost 2.58% to R45.72.

Hyprop gained 1.24% to R71.88. It said earlier it had refinanced R4bn of its debt in order to allay a Moody’s concern — the ratings agency had noted it would be reliant on external financing to cover R5bn of debt due over the next 16 months. Work on refinancing other debt continued, the company said.

[email protected]