Miners and Naspers pull up JSE, again
The rand has weakened to above R14/$ for the first time in six weeks, lifting miners and rand hedges, but banks and retailers are under pressure
Diversified miners and rand hedges kept the JSE in positive territory on Thursday morning, after the rand weakened above the psychologically important R14/$ handle for the first time in six weeks. Disappointing local economic data and Eskom’s problems continue to weigh on sentiment, with analysts saying they expect investors to remain cautious ahead of next week’s budget policy statement. At 10am, the all share was up a marginal 0.12% to 54,611.1 points and the top 40 had added 0.11%. Gold miners were up 1.73%, platinums 1.39% and industrials 0.2%. Banks had lost 1.09%, food and drug retailers 0.9%, and general retailers 0.64%. Gold was up 0.24% to $1,309.40/oz and platinum 0.25% to $787.87. Brent crude was 1.04% higher at $64.34 a barrel. Commodity prices are finding support from strong Chinese economic data, as well as the start of two days of trade talks between US and Chinese officials. China’s exports unexpectedly surged 9.1% in January, reversing a 4.4% decline seen in Novembe...
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