The rand remained under R13/$ dollar on Thursday morning after strengthening to R12.90/$ on Wednesday. The weaker dollar was bad news for Japanese stocks. The yen strengthening under ¥114/$ sent Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index down 0.5% and the Topix index down 0.3% ahead of the JSE’s opening. Woolworths said in a trading update on January 12 that it expected to report on Thursday that its interim headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the 26 weeks to December 25 declined by up to 7.5%. This was partly due to the comparable period in 2015 including Boxing Day. Basic earnings per share (EPS), which include Woolworths’s profit from its A$360m sale of David Jones head office in Sydney, would increase between 30% and 40%, the company said in the trading update. The JSE’s general retailers index rallied 1.38% on Wednesday after Statistics SA reported higher than expected December retail sales data. Consumers shifting their spending to Black Friday in November did not dampen Christmas shopping a...
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