THURSDAY, 6.00PM:
WORRIES about the stability of the Asian markets, an imminent drop on Wall Street, and the weak rand and gold price, knocked the spots off all Johannesburg Stock Exchange indices on Thursday.
The all gold index shed 21,9 points to 744,7, the industrial index, 187,3 points to 8117,3, and the financial index 511,7 points, or 3,9%, to 12535,8. The all share index went down 190,2 points to 6861,8.
Shares worth R1,357bn changed hands.
Bonds approached, but did not break, the 13% yield level on Thursday. At 4pm the key government bond, the R150, was at a 13,11% yield, unchanged from Wednesday. But dealers say they expect the 13% barrier to be broken in the next few months.
At 4pm the rand was at R4,9455-85 to the dollar from a Wednesday close of R4,9290-20, and at R8,1434 against sterling.
Gold continued to decline, and was last quoted at $294,15 an ounce from a London morning fix of $294,70.