JSE opens lower in thin trade as Naspers leads the losers

The JSE all share opened weaker on Monday on what is expected to be a subdued trading day, with US markets closed for a public holiday.

The Dow closed 0.09% off on Friday. Asian markets started the week in the red, with the Nikkei 225 dropping 0.69% and the Hang Seng 0.79%.

Volumes were below R1bn about 30 minutes after the opening, lower than average trade volume at the time.

Naspers took the lead among the losers, dropping 1.84% to R3,205.63 amid ongoing concern about a further crackdown by Chinese authorities on gaming in the country.

Chinese internet company Tencent, of which Naspers owns about a third, has been hit hard by these steps as it is the biggest games-downloading company in the country. It was down nearly 3% in Hong Kong trade.

Naspers lost 7.7% last week.

Rand hedges were also lower in risk-off trade, despite the weaker rand. Expectations are that the rand could lose further ground in the week amid indications that US President Donald Trump will implement further tariff hikes against $200bn of Chinese goods this week.

“The upcoming week could be another tough one for the rand,” said FXTM analyst Jameel Ahmad.

Investors remain concerned about the developments in Argentina and Turkey. “Traders have turned negative toward currencies in countries with high current account deficits,” he said.

Brent crude was steady at $77.78 a barrel with the platinum price edging up slightly to $788.92 an ounce.

At 9.32am the all share was 0.39% lower at 58,441.90 points and the top 40 had lost 0.45%. Industrials lost 0.91%, the gold index 0.63% and resources 0.25%. General retailers rose 1.16%, banks 0.65% and financials 0.54%.

Sasol slipped 0.74% to R571.72.

British American Tobacco lost 1.37% to R702.56 and Richemont 1.09% to R129.10.

Bidvest was 0.77% lower at R214.34. On Monday, the group reported headline earnings per share (HEPS) increased 11.1% to end-June.

Absa rose 1.32% to R164.70 and Nedbank 1.31% to R281.62. Nedbank surpassed Absa with regard to market cap on Friday. Nedbank’s market cap at present is R139.1bn versus Absa’s R138.6bn.

Shoprite rose 1.75% to R207.56 and Woolworths 1.51% to R55.04.

Nepi Rockcastle was 0.33% lower at R139.54.

Sun International slipped 0.75% to R53.10. The group recorded a profit of R137m for the six months to end-June from a loss of R58 in the corresponding period in 2017.

Curro Holdings was down 1.94% to R31.38.