In a reversal of fortunes, the JSE ended the day up 0.54% after Naspers gained 6.44% and its subsidiary Prosus 5.26% after the Dutch e-commerce group and Tencent investor placed its bet on India as the next big tech market.
Prosus paid $4.7bn (about R70bn) for Indian payments business BillDesk in its largest deal ever.
Financial and listed-property stocks also surged, with Old Mutual (+5.42%) and Redefine (+5.26%) leading the gains. Sanlam (+0.72%) and Momentum Metropolitan Holding (+1.28%) also increased despite Bloomberg reporting life insurers settled claims worth R47.6bn in the year through March after the deaths of more than one million policyholders.
Bank-controlling company Sasfin jumped 8.90% after it posted annual headline earnings of R141.1m compared with a loss of over R48m last year, largely owing to an 11.65% increase in income and improved credit performance.
Massmart gained 7.44% a day after reporting its interim headline loss narrowed by nearly 41% on higher sales and a positive effect of its turnaround strategy.
Resource counters Alphamin (+17.18%) and Randgold (+13.68%), investment holding company Brimstone (+22.32%) and retailer Steinhoff (+18.57%) all showed double-digit increases.
On the downside, the Resources index dropped 1.84%, with Harmony (-3.80%), BHP (-2.90%) and Anglo American (-2.82%) the biggest losers. Fortescue Metals Group edged out BHP in a bid to acquire a nickel miner active in Canada’s highly prospective Ring of Fire region.
On the macroeconomic front South Africa showed a trade surplus of R36.96bn for the month of July, below the expectation of R45bn and the record R57bn recorded in June, primarily due to an 11.7% decrease in exports in July from the previous print, with lower metal exports contributing the most.
In the currency market, the rand enjoyed another strong day, with the local unit breaking below the R14.50-level against the US dollar in late afternoon trade. While emerging markets, in general, were the flavour of the day, the rand’s moves outshone the rest of its peers, comments TreasuryONE.
“Another boost for the rand was good trade data and market dynamics, with the breach of the R14.50-level signalling for stop losses to be triggered and the rand to jump to R14.46. The rand ignored the US dollar for most of the day, as the US dollar strengthened in the afternoon,” the forex trading house says.
TreasuryONE sees Friday’s non-farm numbers as a possible catalyst for some consolidation in the rand/dollar exchange rate.
Indicators as at 17:00
Currencies
USDZAR 14.4680
EURUSD 1.1799
EURZAR 17.0657
GBPUSD 1.3761
GBPZAR 19.9035
AUDZAR 10.5701
CADZAR 11.4419
CNYZAR 2.2394
ZARJPY 7.5909
CHFZAR 15.7815
USDAOA 633.26
Equities and bonds
R186 7.32%
US 10 Year 1.30%
JSE 0.47%
FTSE -0.54%
S&P 500 -0.06%
Commodities
Gold $1 805.71
Plat $1 006.77
Plad $2 476.18
Rhod $17 590.00
Irid $5 190.00
Ruth $723.00
Copp $9 462.25
Brent $73.03
Iron Ore 62.5% $159.58
Coal API4 $141.00
Gold ZAR R26 117.25
Plat ZAR R14 561.62
Indicators brought to you by TreasuryONE
