DAVID LE PAGE, Johannesburg | Friday 6.00pm.
HIT by a $6 slump in the bullion price, gold was the big loser on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Friday, dropping nearly 5% or 48 points to 1001.
Industrials also took a hit, slumping 92 points to 7286, while financials held the fort with a 105-point push to 9882. The overall index dropped 45 points to 6918.
Most world markets also declined on Friday. In the East, Tokyo’s Nikkei Dow dropped a resounding 354 points to 16946, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng had the jitters, slumping 573 points to 12997.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 dropped 51 points to 6356; late afternoon, the CAC40 had dropped 44 points into the Seine while the Frankfurt DAX was clinging by its fingertips to 23 points gained on 5297.
Wall Street is trying desperately to decide whether it should be worried by Federal Reserve Bank governor Alan Greenspan’s warning that wage-related inflation is inevitable, or reassured by an US economic report suggesting a 1-basis point increase in unemployment in April; the latter suggesting that such inflationary pressures have yet to arrive.
Just before 10am on the New York bourse, the Dow had slipped back a marginal seven points to around 10940.
The yield on the R150 benchmark government bond closed at 14,45%.
Gold ended the day $6,15 down at $282,15 an ounce.
The rand continued to take minor hits; leaving a pound costing R10,04, a dollar R6,14 and a euro R6,61.