JSE tracks firmer Asian markets led by Naspers

The JSE pushed higher on Tuesday morning, led by Naspers and miners, as Asian markets recovered from recent losses.

Investors are awaiting key data releases later in the week, notably first-quarter Chinese GDP numbers on Wednesday, amid concern that the global economy is slowing.

The Shanghai Composite pushed firmly higher on Tuesday, snapping three days of losses, amid possible bargain-hunting ahead of Wednesday’s economic data.

Miners and Naspers were firmly up, but local banks were under a little pressure. The rand was firmer on Tuesday morning, but had weakened back above R14/$ in late trade on Monday. A firmer rand generally benefits local banks.

At 10am the all share was up 0.67% to 58,641.2 points and the top 40 had risen 0.74%. Industrials had added 0.93% and the resources index 0.64%. Banks had fallen 0.44%.

Gold was down 0.22% to $1,284.79/oz while platinum was up 0.6% to $891.91. Brent crude was 0.31% lower at $71.04 a barrel.

The rand was flat at R14.042/$, but had weakened about 0.55% against the greenback on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, diversified miner Glencore had added 1.07% to R61.35 and Anglo American 0.73% to R401.76.

Sasol had risen 1.34% to R469.49.

MTN was up 1.93% to R99.89, on track for its seventh-consecutive day of gains.

Telkom rose 1.62% to R80.68.

EOH surged 22.64% to R15.94, despite having earlier reported a R3.3bn loss for the six months to end-January, from a profit of R70.9m in the prior comparative period. The company was hit by impairments of some of its assets, but said that if once-off items were excluded, its operating expenses had remained flat during the period. 

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