South African oil and chemicals group Sasol on Monday touched yet another all-time high on bullish sentiment toward the stock driven by the high oil and chemical prices, a re-rating of the stock by foreign investors and positioning ahead of the group’s latest interim results due next Monday, analysts said.
At 10.40am, Sasol was quoted on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) at R144,20, up 1,9% or R2,70 from its previous close.
Earlier, Sasol touched an all-time high of R144,40, eclipsing the stock’s previous all-time high of R141,50 established last Friday.
“At current levels, I see Sasol’s share price as being overvalued. It is difficult to see why Sasol’s share price is continuing to increase. It could be on the back of the analyst visit to the group’s operations in Qatar or the higher oil and chemicals prices. I think next week’s results are already in the share price,” an analyst said.
Last week, Sasol announced that it expects that its headline earnings per share for the half-year ending December 2004 to be about 60% higher than in the previous comparative period.
For the half-year to December 2003, Sasol reported that headline earnings per share were 397 cents.
Earnings per share for the six-month period ended December 31 2004 are expected to be about 45% higher than those of the previous corresponding reporting period, Sasol said.
Sasol’s attributable earnings per share for the 2003 half-year were 408 cents.
Should prevailing exchange rates, oil prices and chemical margins continue, the earnings per share in the second half of the financial year should be more or less equal to those of the first half, Sasol added.
The existing I-Net Bridge consensus of analysts expects headline earnings per share of 1Â 314,7 cents for the group’s 2004 financial year, up from 925 cents in the 2003 financial year. — I-Net Bridge