Rand slightly calmer after electricity shock
Harmony Gold’s interim earnings are expected to show a big decrease, while SA unemployment is expected to have temporarily improved
Eskom’s worst electricity crisis yet sent the rand to R13.82/$ on Monday night from the R13.58/$ it was trading at before the announcement of the resumption of load-shedding. The rand was slightly calmer at R13.79/$, R15.55/€ and R17.74/£ at 7am on Tuesday morning.
Harmony Gold Mining Company warned shareholders on February 2 that it expected to report on Tuesday that its interim earnings would be only about a tenth of the matching period’s. Harmony said it expected to report headline earnings per share (HEPS) of about 18c for the six months to end-December versus R2.24 for the same period in 2017. The gold miner said its profit was dragged down by booking a R915m depreciation charge for its Hidden Valley project in Papua New Guinea. It also booked a translation loss of R180m on dollar-denominated debt. Stats SA is scheduled to release the December quarter’s unemployment figures at 11.30am. The peak summer holiday and Christmas shopping season tends to see temporary jobs creat...
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