Investor attention in the South African bourse will focus on technology counter, Didata, which released its interim results on Thursday morning, while a new listing will also attract attention.
Dimension Data posted a fall in earnings per share for the six months to end-March 2002 to two US cents from 4,4 cents in the second half to September 2001. The results were better than analysts’ expectations.
But Didata’s Asian networking unit Datacraft Asia Ltd warned earlier on Thursday of a full-year loss because of bad debt problems at its Chinese operations.
”The market is in two minds about this, but if I was a betting man, I would bet Didata will open down,” said an IT analyst, a view echoed by others.
Attention will also be caught by the latest listing on the bourse’s gold index of black-owned African Rainbow Minerals Gold (ARMgold).
About 32,84 million of the company’s shares were issued at R44 each in a private placement that was about three times oversubscribed.
One gold mining analyst said he expected the share price to shoot up to R70-80 because of the recent strength in the price of bullion.
”There is a lot of interest in this stock and we’ll see how it fares during the day. It’s got a lowish PE (price earnings ratio) and we see it moving better than its issue price,” said a stock trader.
The near-month all-share futures was up 17 points at 11,292, while the June industrial futures contract was untraded by 0645 GMT. – Reuters