MARKET WRAP: JSE ends week lower after promising start

After a weak opening on Friday, the JSE all share failed to gain momentum on the day, closing marginally lower.

The all share struggled to find direction on weaker European markets and as the rand remained on the back foot.

The all share ended the week 0.22% lower, with earlier optimism fading towards the end of the week, with the market losing more than 2% on Thursday, as the Nigerian central bank announced renewed claims against MTN and Standard Bank.

The all share closed 0.23% lower at 58,668.50 points on Friday. Food and drug retailers added 2.04% but industrials lost 0.7%.

Trading was cautious ahead of the US Labor Day holiday on Monday and as Statistics SA is set to release the latest GDP data for the second quarter on Tuesday. The numbers will show whether or not SA slipped into a technical recession. The consensus is for quarterly growth of 0.5%, but this is far from certain.

A number of top companies will report numbers next week, and although most have given guidance on expected results to the market, there might be a few surprises.

Bidvest finals are due on Monday. Management said recently that normalised headline earnings per share (HEPS) were set to increase by between 11% and 14%. On Friday, Bidvest closed 4.16% higher at R216.

Discovery’s annual results to end-June are due on Tuesday. In a trading statement, management said that normalised HEPS growth was expected to be between 13% and 18% higher. It rose 1.63% to R175.21 on Friday.

MMI’s finals on Wednesday are expected to reveal plans by the company to up growth prospects in a weak economy, having warned that HEPS for the full year could be down between 15% and 25%. Its share price rose marginally on Friday but it is still down 18% in 2018.

Financial heavyweights FirstRand and Sanlam will report on Thursday. The consensus view is that FirstRand will deliver annual HEPS growth of 6.5% to end-June, largely unchanged from the 7% earnings growth it recorded in the interim period to December. Sanlam has predicted an improvement from its 2017 annual results with interim HEPS set to grow by 7.5%.

FirstRand closed 1.87% higher at R70.70 on Friday and is now up 5.13% in 2018. Sanlam rose 0.8% to R79.34, but has lost 8.8% for the year.

The top 40 Alsi futures index fell 0.95% to 51,998 points. It ended the week 1.15% lower. The number of contracts traded was 25,788 from Thursday’s 32,851.