JSE likely to slide for third day

The JSE looks set for a third day of losses on Wednesday, judging from Asian markets.

JSE heavyweight Naspers has lost 6.3% so far this week, dragging the top 40 index down 2.9% to under 50,000 points.

Hong Kong-listed Tencent, which Naspers tends to track since it makes up the bulk of its asset value, was down 0.78% at HK$383 ahead of the JSE’s opening on Wednesday.

The slide of JSE blue chips has led the Satrix Top 40 exchange-traded fund to fall 2.8% from Friday’s closing price of R50.75 to Tuesday’s closing price of R49.16.

Old Mutual shareholders, whose OML shares stopped trading on Friday and were transformed into an OMU share plus a third of a QLT share by Tuesday’s close, have effectively gained 1.5% so far in the unbundling.

The new OMU shares ended their first day at R29.40, and Quilter closed at R27.01, equating to R38.40 from Old Mutual’s R37.83 closing price on Friday.

The rand was relatively unchanged on Wednesday morning from Tuesday, trading at R13.54 to the dollar, R15.78 to the euro and R17.90 to the pound at 6.35am.

African Phoenix — formerly African Bank Investments Limited (Abil) which collapsed in 2014 — warned shareholders on June 14 it expected to report on Wednesday that its interim headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the six months to end-March would be less than a half of the matching period’s 4.1c.

Its results for the year to end-September, released in December, showed African Phoenix is essentially a cash shell, with R1.88bn cash making up the bulk of its R2bn assets.

African Phoenix no longer owns African Bank, the “good bank” salvaged from Abil, but is an investor in the “bad bank”, Residual Debt Services. It also owns Standard General Insurance Company (Stangen).