JSE faces higher Asian markets amid vaccine and stimulus hopes
The JSE faces mostly higher Asian markets on Wednesday morning, with sentiment being supported by an improving picture for the world’s near-term economic outlook.
AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate has also shown positive results, while US president-elect Joe Biden has picked former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen for his new treasury secretary, which further boosted sentiment.
“Exceptionally easy financial conditions will prevail for much longer than usual,” Axi chief global markets strategist Stephen Innes said in a note.
“Markets will be encouraged and incentivised to take more and more risk. Eventually, there will be a price to pay — but worry about that another day,” Innes said in a note.
In morning trade the Shanghai Composite was down 0.22%, while the Hang Seng rose 0.85% and Japan’s Nikkei 1.25%.
Tencent, which gives direction to the JSE via Naspers, fell 1.11%.
Gold was down 0.14% to $1,804.89/oz while platinum rose 0.61% to $965.30. Brent crude was 1.04% higher at $48.42 a barrel.
The rand was flat at R15.19/$.
Locally, inflation numbers for October are due later, and are expected to show a slight uptick, though lower fuel prices are contending with food-price inflation.
In corporate news, employment services group Adcorp is due to release its results for the six months to end-August later. The company said in a recent trading update that it had been successful in its drive to reduce costs, though it had written down some of its businesses.
Source: businesslive.co.za
