JSE gives up morning gains ahead of May 8 elections
The JSE reversed its morning gains on Tuesday afternoon despite an improvement in SA’s business confidence in April.
The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (Sacci) business confidence index (BCI) for April climbed to 93.7 points after hitting a seven-month low the month prior.
However, the all-share index, which was up in morning trade, fell 0.41% to 58,470.6 points by 1.35pm with general retailers leading the losses, falling 1.67%. The top 40 was down by 0.43%.
Mr Price fell 1.2% to R220.48, Truworths 4.3% to R75.61, TFG 1.88% to R193, Woolworths 1.99% to R48.70, and Massmart 3.41% to R88.03.
PPC fell 2.95% to R4.94. AB InBev was down 2.62% to R1,242.01.
Nepi Rockcastle, the second largest listed property went up by 0.89% to R124.27, after the company was cleared of false and misleading reporting by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
MTN rose 0.24% to R103.91 after a court ruling that the telecoms giant had met a deadline to respond to a $2bn tax demand from Nigeria’s attorney-general, Reuters reported. Separately, Reuters reported that MTN Nigeria has registered to list 20.4-billion ordinary shares at 0.02 naira each with the country’s securities regulator.
Rebosis Property Fund rose as much as 10.77% to R1.44 after it said it had renewed nine leases, eight with the department of public works. Rebosis’s shares have been on a prolonged losing streak since reaching a high of about R13.25 in February 2017.
Investors are anxiously waiting for the outcome of the national elections on Wednesday with some analysts hopeful that an ANC win will boost investor sentiment.
“Our base case is for a relatively strong ANC election win in May and a mandate for President Cyril Ramaphosa to continue with his reform and anti-corruption drive,” CEO at Anchor Capital, Peter Armitage said. “This will improve investor confidence and should see strong inflows into the SA equity market. Recent market performance has indicated support for this view.”
Source: businesslive.co.za