MARKET WRAP: JSE jumps 2%, led by banks and retailers

The JSE began the week with its best day in almost a month, tracking gains on global equity markets.

The all share rose 1.96% to 51,690.1 points and the top 40 2.27%. Banks jumped 3.48%, general retailers 3.58% and industrials 2.72%.

Global markets pushed higher largely on retail stocks, which have been boosted by expectations of one of the strongest earnings seasons in years, reported Dow Jones Newswires.

Developments at the weekend were supportive of risk sentiment, analysts said, although a number of events this week could spark volatility in the market.

There is a series of local data releases to look forward to, including a business confidence report on Tuesday, producer inflation data on Thursday, and balance of trade figures on Friday.

The start of the Group of 20 (G20) summit on Thursday will be closely watched, as US President Donald Trump is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to push forward with a resolution to their trade differences.

Markets are eyeing a meeting of oil cartel Opec next week, but motorists are still expected to be on the receiving end of a hefty petrol price cut in December. The central energy fund said earlier on Monday that under recovery between November 2 and November 23 was R1.76 for a litre of unleaded 95 petrol. It is still unclear how much of that will be needed to balance the slate fund, a portion of which was used to reduce price increases earlier in 2018. 

Shortly after the JSE closed, Brent crude had firmed 2.52% to $60.63 a barrel. Platinum and gold were flat at $841.95 and $1,223.06 an ounce, respectively.

Sasol rose 2.79% to R415.612.

Diversified miner Anglo American fell 1.72% to R278.02.

Rand hedge British American Tobacco lost 1.62% to R480.80, while Richemont added 2.14% to R92.40.

Pepkor jumped 7.55% to R19.79, having earlier reported a maiden dividend of 27.8c per share for the year to end-September. Revenue grew 10.9% to R54.2bn.

Accelerate Property Fund gained 4.27% to R3.91, after earlier reporting net asset value growth of 8.2% for the six months to end-September, although the company’s distribution per share fell to 27.26c from the prior period’s 28.7c.

PPC fell 3.36% to R5.75, extending Friday’s 6.15% slump. The cement-maker had reported that overall group revenue grew 8% to R5.6bn in the six months to end-September from R5.2bn in the matching period in 2017.

Naspers gained 3.86% to R2,822.18, ahead of its interim results for the period to end-September on Friday. Compared with its previous results, Naspers expects its headline earnings per share to have risen by between 200% and 207%.

The Dow was up 1.39% to 24,624.65 points, while in Europe, the FTSE 100 had gained 0.94%, the CAC 40 0.85% and the DAX 30 1.39%.

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