Turkish election rallies rand

The rand strengthened with the Turkish lira at the weekend, with incumbent president Tayyip Erdogan declared the winner of Turkey’s general election on Monday morning.

After strengthening to under R13.40 to the dollar on Sunday, the rand lost some ground to trade at R13.46 to the dollar, R15.68 to the euro and R17.85 to the pound at 6.40am.

Brent crude oil was down 2% to $74.24/barrel and West Texas Intermediate oil was down 1.3% to $68.39/barrel on Monday morning, after a meeting of oil-producing countries reached an agreement to raise supply.

Falling oil prices are likely to drag down Sasol, which closed 0.63% lower at R467.88 on Friday.

A US threat to bar companies with more than 25% Chinese ownership from acquiring US technology companies cast a pall over Asian markets trading ahead of the JSE’s opening on Monday morning.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index as down 0.5%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.38%, with Naspers’s 31%-owned Tencent falling 0.8% to HK$394.20.

Sydney’s ASX 200 index was down 0.25%, but BHP surprisingly was up 1.6% at A$33.04 despite the weaker oil prices.

JSE-listed companies that might release results on Monday include Gold Brands, Micromega, and Tawana Resources.