OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday
SOUTH Africa’s technology sector leapt more than three percent at the start of trade on Monday as the market played catch up with a positive Friday Wall Street, traders said.
Didata, the networking and IT company which has a 78% weighting in the IT sector, moved up 2.96% to R38.20. Didata has a large exposure to the United States.
The IT sector was last trading up 2.13%.
The tech-laden Nasdaq index ended Friday up 2.1% as the market hoped for an aggressive rate cut by the Federal Reserve after the worst monthly jobs report in a decade.
There is no local economic data this week to give the Johannesburg bourse direction.
“Wall Street was in negative territory when we closed on Friday, but the turnaround will show in our market this morning,” said a futures trader.
The trader said he saw the market drifting down off early morning highs on the lack of more news to give the bourse a boost.
The benchmark all-share index was up 39.7 points at 8,975.1.
De Beers was up 0.55% and Anglo American pushed up 0.6% as the market continued to speculate on the outcome of an $18.7bn takeover bid by Anglo of the diamond giant.
The deal will be voted on by De Beers shareholders on May 18. – Reuters
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