JSE opens flat amid improved emerging-market sentiment
The JSE all share opened flat on Monday as firmer retail, banking and financial shares were offset by lower mining stocks.
Brent crude was largely unchanged at $82.8 a barrel with gold and platinum prices trending lower.
Markets in China are closed for holidays the entire week. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is closed on Monday and will resume trading on Tuesday.
The followed lacklustre trade on the Dow, ending the session on Friday with a marginal gain of 0.07%, as the major indices swung between gains and losses for most of the day.
The Nikkei 225 rose 0.52% on Monday.
The US Federal Reserve last week hiked interest rates by 25 basis points and indicated that a further hike in December might be in the offing.
The rand continues to trade in a tight range after the euro fell through the $1.16 level. Although the rand has failed to break through R14 to the dollar, it has also not weakened above R14.20, which could put the local currency on course for further gains, analysts said.
The US and Canada announced a last-minute deal on Sunday on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), lifting a cloud of uncertainty over the 25-year old commercial bloc.
The pending agreement will allow Canada to join an accord reached in late August between the US and Mexico and diminishes the prospects of US President Donald Trump following through with threats to either kill Nafta outright or break the trilateral pact into separate pieces, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
“Emerging markets are looking a bit rosier and at the moment, barring any negative shock, we could see further emerging-market strength,” TreasuryOne senior dealer Andre Botha said.
At 9.38am the all share was 0.09% lower at 55,656.10 points and the top 40 had dropped 0.12%. Resources lost 0.46%, the gold index 0.23% and industrials also 0.23%. Food and drug retailers rose 1.14%, general retailers 0.67%, banks 0.58%, property 0.54% and financials 0.49%.
Anglo American slipped 0.99% to R316.61.
British American Tobacco lost 1.43% to R658.22.
Standard Bank rose 1.02% to R176.78 and Absa 0.90% to R153.25.
Financial services group Alexander Forbes rose 4.65% to R5.18. The group announced on Monday that Dawie de Villiers had been appointed group CEO.
Steinhoff was down 1.3% to R2.27.
Property group Texton rose 0.91% to R5.54 after reporting that the dividend for the year to end-June dropped 13.1%.
Naspers lost 0.79% to R3,027.61.
Aspen Pharmacare jumped 3.16% to R174.74.
Source: businesslive.co.za
