THURSDAY looked as though it could be another drama-filled day following Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s announcement on Wednesday evening that he would not heed the Hawks’s summons to present himself at noon.Relative calm appeared to have returned on Thursday morning, with the rand trading at about R14.16/$ following its 6% crash from R13.44/$ on Monday to as low as R14.28 on Wednesday.Fears that President Jacob Zuma intends replacing the country’s respected finance minister with someone more malleable sent the JSE’s banking index crashing 5.13% on Wednesday. Standard Bank suffered most with a 5.57% drop to R140.60, followed by FirstRand which fell 5.48% to R46.75 while Barclays Africa Group lost 5.14% to R155.Absa’s government bond-tracking exchange-traded fund NewFunds Govi fell 3.04% to R50.99, tracking SA’s credit standing down.Sibanye Gold said in a trading statement on August 19 that it expected to report that headline earnings per share for the six months to end-June jumpe...
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