The rand strengthened to under R13.30 to the dollar in the early hours of Friday, reaching R13.27 at about 3:30am. At 3am South African time, China reported a record $44.16bn trade surplus, far exceeding the expected $28bn economists’ consensus for June. The portion of China’s trade surplus attributable to the US was $29bn, a figure likely to be used by the Trump administration to defend its tariffs on Chinese imports. Mainland China’s Shanghai composite index was down 0.12%, but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.58%, with Tencent rising 0.63% to HK$382.40. In Sydney, BHP was down 0.8% to A$33.29, but South32 was up 0.8% to A$3.63 — providing mixed signals as to whether the JSE’s miners will continue their slide for a third day. The rand was trading at R13.29 to the dollar, R15.51 to the euro and R17.53 to the pound at 6.45am. The only JSE company diarised to release its results on Friday is financial services group PBT, formerly called Prescient. PBT warned shareholders on July ...
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