JSE has best week in six months, led by Naspers and banks

The JSE capped a positive week with another upbeat performance on Friday. A rand recovery in the afternoon helped lift sentiment towards local stocks.

A strong showing by Naspers was the main driver on the day, as the market heavyweight’s AGM continued, amid reports that it was working to reduce its exposure to the JSE, and thus close a massive gap between its market capitalisation and its investment in Tencent. Naspers closed 2.82% higher at R3,538.06, having gained 11.26% during the week.

Dollar weakness was the major theme from Monday, while the week produced a mixed bag in terms of corporate results.

The greenback weakened a little again on Friday, helping to buoy retailers and financial stocks, while higher prices for some commodities boosted miners.

Global market focus is on a speech by US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell later on Friday, which will be closely watched for signals on how the Fed will respond to uncertainty, such as a trade war. Talks during the week between the US and China failed to produce any visible sign of progress, reducing the prospects of a deal any time soon, reported Dow Jones Newswires.

The all share firmed 1.02% to 58,797.7 points and the top 40 lifted 1.17%. Gold miners rose 1.84%, food and drug retailers 1.79% and industrials 1.34%. The all share rose 3.8% in the week, with industrials up 5.46% and banks 4.35%.

On Friday, diversified miner Glencore gained 3.09% to R58.64 and Anglo American 1.42% to R288.

Rand hedge British American Tobacco fell 2.93% to R721.22.

MMI Holdings softened 1.27% to R16.39, having said earlier that headline earnings per share (HEPS) were expected to decrease by between 15% and 25% for the year to end-June.

Woolworths fell 1.19% to R50, extending Thursday’s fall, when it reported a loss of R3.5bn to end-June.

Massmart rose 2.63% to R113.66, after reporting modest gains in total sales for the six months to end-July on Thursday.

Distell gave back 1.47% to R121.90, after saying earlier that revenue grew 10.4% to R24bn and net profit 28.6% to R1.7bn, in the year to end-June.

Shortly after the JSE closed the Dow was up 0.53% to 25,797.83 points, while in Europe, the FTSE 100 had gained 0.23%, the CAC 40 0.31% and the DAX 30 0.24%.

At the same time, platinum had risen 2.23% to $794.23 an ounce and gold 1.87% to $1,207.50. Brent crude was 1.89% higher at $76.16 a barrel.