JSE likely to slide with platinum and Tencent

The platinum price fell under $800/oz on Wednesday morning, its lowest level in a decade. Platinum was trading 1.36% lower at $790.40/oz on Wednesday morning.

Platinum has not traded under $800/oz since the bottom of the commodities crash in 2008.

Another bad omen for the JSE was Tencent’s continued slide ahead of the release of its quarterly results after the Hong Kong stock exchanges closes on Wednesday morning.

This means its 31% owner Naspers will bear the brunt of the expected bad reaction if Tencent’s earnings have suffered as much from China’s clampdown on computer games as expected.

Tencent was down 3.73% to HK$335.40 on Wednesday morning. Naspers fell 2.1% to R3,335 on Tuesday, dragging the JSE’s top 40 index down 0.52%.

According to Bloomberg, the $150bn that Tencent has shed since its January peak makes it “the biggest wipeout of shareholder wealth worldwide”.

Tencent has suffered in the past few days from the Chinese government’s crackdown on computer games.

Reuters said delays in approving new computer games followed a restructuring of power among Chinese government departments. Regulators have also been concerned about violence and gambling in some games.

Tencent’s fall dragged the Hang Seng index down 1.52%. Mainland China’s Shanghai composite index was down 1.31%, and Tokyo’s Topix index was down 1.12%.

In Sydney, miner BHP was down 0.53% to A$33.64. BHP is the second-largest constituent of the JSE’s top 40, behind Naspers.

The rand, which strengthened back to R14 on Tuesday, was trading at R14.35 to the dollar at 6.25am on Wednesday morning.

It was at R16.26 to the euro and R18.23 to the pound.

Statistics SA is scheduled to release June’s retail sales figures at 1pm. Annual growth in retail sales is expected to remain at about May’s 1.9%, according to a poll of economists done by Trading Economics.

No JSE-listed companies are diarised to release results on Wednesday.