Rand back under R13.20/$ ahead of JSE’s opening

The rand recovered back under R13.20 to the dollar on Tuesday morning, its best level in over a month.

“Ramaphoria” appears to have peaked in February, when the rand reached R11.55 to the dollar — a level last seen in May 2015.

From February to the end June the rand gradually weakened back to nearly R14 to the dollar before strengthening again.

The rand was trading at R13.19 to the dollar, R15.46 to the euro and R17.47 to the pound at 6.30am.

The JSE, which has slid for five days in a row, received mixed signals from Asian stock exchanges on Tuesday.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange rose when it reopened after a long weekend, with the Topix index up 1.28%.

But Chinese stocks were down, with both the mainland Shanghai composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down about 1%.

Tencent was down 1.36% to HK$376.20, indicating its 31% owner Naspers may fall for a third day. Naspers closed 2.12% down at R3,301.42 on Monday.

In Sydney, BHP was down 1.45% at A$32.58 and South32 was down 1.65% at A$3.57, indicating the JSE’s miners will continue their slide.

BHP closed 2.42% lower at R281.84 and South32 closed 2.76% lower at R34.92 on Monday.

Global Asset Management issued a trading statement on Monday saying it expected to report on Tuesday that interim headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the six months to end-May would be about the same as in the matching period.

But basic earnings per share (EPS) would be only about a third of the matching period’s 8.4c.

“The decline in the EPS is mainly due to the prior period recording a once off gain of R3.8m due to a change in control of a subsidiary, with the core operations showing an improvement from the prior comparative period,” the trading statement said.

Source: businesslive.co.za