JSE flat as investors await release of mining figures for September

The JSE was little changed on Thursday morning, with global markets subdued by US-China trade war jitters, while local focus is on mining data for September.

There is concern about SA’s third-quarter performance, with Statistics SA saying on Wednesday that retail sales increased just 0.2% year on year in September, missing market expectations of a rise of 1.9%.

Mining is expected to fall 2.4% year on year in September, an improvement from the 3.2% fall in August.

Global markets have been subdued by a lack of progress in the US-China trade war, with reports suggesting that there are disagreements between the two sides on a partial deal reached in October.

“Markets continue to trade in narrow ranges in fairly lacklustre trade as a lack of progress on the trade deal front dampens investor optimism,” TreasuryOne senior currency dealer Andre Botha said in a note.

At 9.42am the all share was little changed at 56,367.8 points and the top 40 was flat. Gold miners had added 1.41%.

Gold was up 0.23% to $1,466.58/oz and platinum 0.12% to $875.14/oz. Brent crude was 0.26% higher at $62.78 a barrel.

Rand hedge AB InBev had slipped 1.06% to R1,190.65.

Mediclinic was down 1.77% to R71.22. It said earlier that adjusted operating profit was flat at £137m (R2.6bn) in its six months to end-September.

Tradehold was unchanged at R11.70. It said earlier that revenue in its six months to end-August fell 1.8% to £47.7m (R248m).

Sephaku Holdings was unchanged at R1.25. The group reported a headline loss per share of 4.11c in its year to end-September, from headline earnings per share of 12.59c previously, largely due to an underperformance by SepCem, its joint venture with Dangote Cement.

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