FRIDAY, 5.30PM:
FUTURES trades hijacked the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Friday during the last two hours of trade as the December ’97 contracts closed out leading most of the major indices to be knocked lower as the derivatives market sold scrip, dealers said.
At the close the all gold index had gained 4,8 points to 765,4 — largely due to the uptick in the bullion price. However, the industrial index had shed 219,5 points to 9 773,1, the financial index had plunged 189,6 points to 9 803 and the all share index was driven down 118,9 points to 6 049,9.
Other factors also influenced the overall market sentiment. In particular the continuing Asian crisis, which has been affecting US corporate earnings and has caused the Dow Jones industrial average to suffer several reversals this week. On Thursday the Dow fell 110-points and it was expected to open another 100-points lower on Friday, following a 5% fall on the Japanese Nikkei-225 index earlier in the day. Hong Kong was also about 5% down due to investor concerns over the enclave’s currency and fears of further falls on Wall Street.
Gold kept up its assault on the $290/oz resistance level during the session and this helped keep the related shares buoyant, dealers said. Bullion was last seen at $289,75 from a London morning fix of $289,25/oz.
Bonds shrugged off inital weakness on the back of shaky Asian stock markets to end virtually unchanged from previous closing levels in lacklustre trade on Friday. At 4pm the benchmark R150government long bond was quoted two basis points weaker at a 13,990% yield. The longer-dated R153 was untraded and the Eskom 168 bond was bid at 14,165 and offered at 14,145% from its previous close of 14,13%.
The rand was off its lows in late trade on Friday, with the better gold price and strong bonds giving the currency a lift. At 4.05pm the rand stood at R4,8615 to the dollar from R4,8570 at the previous close. It touched a worst bid level of R4,8665 earlier.