JSE faces mixed Asian markets on Wednesday as tech stocks recover
The JSE faces mixed Asian markets on Wednesday morning, with tech stocks showing a strong recovery overnight, and US bonds recovering from their weakest levels in a year.
The concern about inflation has driven global bond yields higher recently, putting pressure on equity markets, notably tech stocks, whose value is often tied up in expected future earnings.
The tech-heavy US Nasdaq rose 3.69% on Tuesday, but has still lost 2.13% over the past five days, after a strong demand for US three-year notes during an auction on Tuesday.
“That assuaged inflationist fears for a day, allowing markets to pile back into their 2020 comfort zones,” Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said in a note. He added, however, that forthcoming auctions for longer-dated treasuries this week will be closely watched, and it would be premature to say the market has become more comfortable regarding the issue of inflation.
In morning trade, the Shanghai Composite was up 0.67% and the Hang Seng 0.53%, while Australia’s All Ordinaries Index gave back 0.47%.
Tencent, which gives direction to the JSE through the Naspers stable, was up 2.8%.
Gold was flat at $1,713.10/oz while platinum lost 0.79% to $1,159.74. Brent crude was 0.56% weaker at $66.92 a barrel.
The rand was 0.34% weaker at R15.34/$, having gained 1.6% on Tuesday, bolstered by interest in emerging markets and better-than-expected fourth quarter GDP data for SA.
MTN, Africa’s largest mobile operator, is due to release its results for the year to end-December later, saying in a recent trading update that it had written down a number of operations, including MTN Syria and MTN Liberia. However, headline earnings per share (HEPS), which excludes certain one-off items, are expected to rise by as much as 70%.
Property group Growthpoint is due to release its interim results to end-December later. It said in a recent trading update that distributable income per share could fall by as much as a third.
Source: businesslive.co.za
