BHP jumped as much as 10% before settling to close up 4.69% after the world’s largest mining company said it will merge its oil-and-gas business with Australia’s Woodside Petroleum and end its dual listing in London.
The proposal, subject to approvals including by the company’s board, would leave BHP with secondary listings in London, Johannesburg and New York. Under the current arrangement, BHP has two headquarters and two main stock market listings, but is run as a single entity under the same management and board, reports Bloomberg. The company announced the change to its structure as part of its annual earnings results today.
Montauk Renewables got hammered 15.23% after the renewable energy firm posted a half-year loss and declared no interim dividend “to focus financial resources on the continued development of the company’s operations portfolio”.
Naspers widened its losses, giving up another 8.08% after Tencent subsidiary Tencent Music Entertainment tumbled amid concerns over China’s widening crackdown on internet companies. Macquarie analyst Ellie Jiang downgraded Tencent Music to underperform after the company’s second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations but fell short on revenue.
Tencent, in which Naspers holds a 29% stake through subsidiary Prosus (+0.59%), is due to report results tomorrow.
Other winners helping the JSE to a positive 0.17% close were Vivo Energy (+6.48%), PSG Konsult (+5.02%), Truworths (+4.73%) and Exxaro (+4.06%).
In the currency market, the rand flirted with the R15-level against the US dollar, touching R14.99 in intraday trade following the release of worse-than-expected US retail numbers. TreasuryONE says that “although the number disappointed (-1.1 vs. -0.3 expected), the market thought it would be worse”, causing the dollar to turn bullish and emerging market currencies to dive. The rand regained some composure and is currently trading at R14.88/$, but the rollercoaster in EMs is expected to continue going into the FOMC minutes later this week.
“The rand is teetering at the R15-mark, and should the level break, we could see the unit going on a bit of a run. With the FOMC on the horizon, we could be in for a wild ride in the next few days,” comments TreasuryONE.
The US retail number also placed strain on commodities, with palladium plummeting 2.3% to last trade at $2,546/oz. Platinum lost over 1% and gold last traded at $1,784/oz.
Indicators as at 17:00
Currencies
USDZAR 14.9681
EURUSD 1.1712
EURZAR 17.5234
GBPUSD 1.3734
GBPZAR 20.5518
AUDZAR 10.8564
CADZAR 11.8442
CNYZAR 2.3060
ZARJPY 7.3179
CHFZAR 16.3597
USDAOA 638.87
Equities and bonds
R186 7.34%
US 10 Year 1.26%
JSE 0.31%
FTSE 0.41%
S&P 500 -0.56%
Commodities
Gold $1 782.25
Plat $1 002.47
Plad $2 525.68
Rhod $18 990.00
Irid $5 190.00
Ruth $748.00
Copp $9 255.00
Brent $69.95
Iron Ore 62.5% $166.96
Coal API4 $141.00
Gold ZAR R26 609.53
Plat ZAR R14 967.12
Indicators brought to you by TreasuryONE
