JSE gains as Asian markets benefit from China’s rate cut

The JSE was higher on Monday, tracking Asian markets after China cut its interest rate for the first time since 2015.

China lowered its short-term funding rate by five basis points to 2.50% amid a wave of monetary policy easing among developed economies.

Sentiment has been supported by reports that the US and China are making progress in their discussions ahead of signing a partial trade deal.

“While this is arguably a positive conversation that enables a deal to be reached, we were meant to be at the point of agreeing on a date and location for it to be signed off. Trump looks to have been a little premature in his assertion that a deal was done last month, with there clearly still being plenty more work to do,”  Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam said.

Earlier, the Shanghai Composite added 0.62%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.35% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 0.49%.

At 11.11am, the all share was up 0.9% to 56,556 points and the top 40 0.99%. Industrials added 1.34% and banks 0.31%. 

Barloworld said on Monday that it would merge its automotive and logistics businesses to save costs. Its share price was unchanged at R124.02.

Netcare was up 5.05% to R18.53. The company said profit fell 47.8% to R2.4bn in the year to end-September.   

Pioneer Foods said it had declared a dividend of 324c in the year to end-September, down 11% from the previous period. Its share price was flat at R108.90.

Astral Foods was up 0.55% to R172.95. The company said on Monday that revenue increased 4% to R13.4bn in the year to end-September.

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Source: businesslive.co.za