JSE slips in broad-based losses as caution prevails

The JSE was lower almost across the board on Thursday morning, with only property stocks showing signs of life.

Global activity was cautious, with all eyes on the European Central Bank’s (EBC’s) policy announcement at 3.30pm South African time.

Weak eurozone economic data has prompted speculation that the ECB will announce stimulus measures, which would be likely to slow the pace of its monetary policy tightening.

Local focus was on corporate results, notably from MTN and Standard Bank.

At 10am MTN had jumped 7.55% to R81.80. It said earlier that headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the year to end-December increased to 337c from 182c in 2017. The network operator has suffered setbacks in a number of its major markets, including Nigeria and Iran, and remains 8% down so far in 2019.

Standard Bank fell 1.34% to R185.67. It said earlier HEPS rose 7% to R17.48 in the year to end-December, with the group raising its dividend by the same amount, to R9.70.

Sanlam was down 1.85% to R75.89, having said earlier that normalised HEPS fell 10% in the year to end-December, although the financial services group upped its dividend 8% to 312c compared to the prior comparative period.

The all share was down 0.51% to 55,788.2 points and the top 40 had dropped 0.55%. Gold miners had lost 3.45%, banks 0.93% and industrials 0.4%. The property index was up 0.39%.

Gold had fallen 0.28% to $1,282.70/oz and platinum 0.42% to $824.18. Brent crude was 0.36% higher at $66.14 a barrel.

Rand hedge British American Tobacco was up 1.77% to R575.

AngloGold Ashanti had slipped 3.97% to R183.14 and Harmony 3.79% to R26.43.

Naspers was down 1.56% to R3,165.03.

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