After opening firmer on Monday morning, the JSE was in negative territory by midday in a quiet, order driven market.
The JSE’s all share index was up over a hundred points at one stage, but had given up these gains and more by midday.
By noon, the all share index was down 0,30% with the banks index off 0,81%, financials 0,42% softer and the industrial index 0,33% lower. The platinum mining index was up 0,37% and the gold mining index was flat — off 0,02% — both well off their earlier highs. Resources were down 0,21%.
The rand was bid at 6,52 to the dollar from 6,51 when the JSE closed on Friday, while gold was quoted at $497,45 a troy ounce from $495,75/oz at the JSE’s last close. Platinum was last quoted at $997/oz from $987/oz at the previous close.
“It’s all a bit strange really, as we have gold and platinum near highs. There was a lot of euphoria this morning with gold and platinum expected to break key levels, but the rand has been relatively strong and the market has run out of impetus,” said an equities trader.
He added that volumes were “not great”, with just over one billion rand worth of shares so far.
“It’s also fairly order driven and the order seem to have dried up. We have also seen a bit of profit-taking,” he added.
Anglo was down 170 cents to R208,30 and BHP Billiton gave up 71 cents to R99. However, Sasol advanced 300 cents to R234.
Gold counters were off their earlier highs, with Gold Fields up just two cents to R103,20, after touching an intraday best of R104,99, while Harmony was five cents better at R84,11 after touching R86. However, Western Areas was up 250 cents, or 7,35%, to R36,50.
AngloGold Ashanti was down 285 cents, or 1%, to R283,21. Earlier this morning, credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded AngloGold Ashanti’s national senior unsecured rating to ‘AA-(AA minus)(zaf)’ from ‘AA(zaf)’. The outlook is revised to stable. The national short-term rating is affirmed at ‘F1+(zaf)’.
The downgrade reflected Fitch’s concerns about AngloGold’s rising costs and increasing debt amid a more challenging operating environment. In FY04 net debt rose 98% to $1,293-billion and by end-Q305 had grown to $1,624-billion, Fitch said.
Platinum counters were mixed, with Anglo Platinum up R10, or 2,22%, to R460, while Impala Platinum was down R10,30 to R874,70, after earlier reaching R895.
Among industrials, Barloworld was 89 cents softer at R105,62, while SABMiller was 40 cents down at R119,10.
Cellular operator MTN was up 24 cents to R57,24, but Telkom was down 200 cents to R135.
Among banking stocks, Nedbank was down 86 cents to R90,61 and Firstrand was off 16 cents to R15,89.
According to AFX leading shares pushed ahead in early deals in London, encouraged by Friday’s positive session by Wall Street, while further strength across the mining sector and early gains in GlaxoSmithKline also helped the FTSE 100 reach fresh four year highs, dealers said.
By 8.15am, the FTSE 100 index was up 27,2 points at 5 551,0, while the broader indices also opened higher. Early volume was moderate, with 132,3-million share changing hands in 17 399 deals. – I-Net Bridge