A massive 7.88% gain in Amplats as the platinum miner recorded a 572% increase in first-half earnings and declared a record interim dividend, has buffered an equally huge drop in Naspers and subsidiary Prosus, leading the JSE to end flat.
Shares in online giant Tencent, in which Naspers (-7.18%) holds a 29% stake through Prosus (-7.60%), tanked on China’s move to place restrictions on the country’s education-technology sector.
Parent Anglo American (+3.98%), sister subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore (+3.91%) and platinum peers Implats (+4.9%) and Northam (+4.09%) tracked Amplats’ gains, with the price of platinum ($1,066/oz) and palladium ($2,689/oz) trading mostly sideways.
Tiger Brands lost 3.86% after warning that it was recalling about 20 million canned vegetable products, or about 9% of annual production, manufactured under the KOO and Hugo’s brands due to defects with the can that caused leaks. The food producer estimates that the financial impact of the recall to be between R500m to R650m.
Famous Brands (-1.74%), Sea Harvest (-1.92%) and Telkom (-2.27%) were also among the losers.
On the currency front, the rand was, much like the rugby of the weekend, a definite tale of two halves, comments TreasuryONE. The local unit started this morning on the back foot and came under pressure as the market tried to test the R15/$-handle. The rand, however, was helped by a slipping US dollar to last trade back at the day’s starting levels of R14.83 against the greenback.
Bloomberg reports oil dipped as investors assessed the outlook for demand with the delta variant spreading around the world. Starting on the back foot Brent Crude but has fought back from $ 72.75 a barrel to last trade at $73.66
Indicators as at 17:00
Currencies
USDZAR 14.8294
EURUSD 1.1807
EURZAR 17.5045
GBPUSD 1.3822
GBPZAR 20.4918
AUDZAR 10.9516
CADZAR 11.8207
CNYZAR 2.2870
ZARJPY 7.4334
CHFZAR 16.1757
USDAOA 639.00
Equities and bonds
R186 7.29%
US 10 Year 1.27%
JSE 0.05%
FTSE -0.18%
S&P 500 -0.13%
Commodities
Gold $1 801.56
Plat $1 065.00
Plad $2 685.68
Rhod $18 390.00
Irid $5 590.00
Ruth $748.00
Copp $9 580.00
Brent $73.96
Iron Ore 62.5% $216.03
Coal API4 $131.50
Gold ZAR R26 709.39
Plat ZAR R15 789.37
Indicators brought to you by TreasuryONE
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