The JSE ended in positive territory on a bubbling performance from the world’s largest beer maker, one of the top 10 stocks by market value that gained alongside seven of its peers.
Anheuser-Busch InBev jumped 13.55% after the brewer posted a surprise increase in third-quarter profit, buoyed by beer sales in Brazil and upgraded its forecast for 2021 earnings growth. Peer Distell fizzled, losing 0.28%.
Market heavies Prosus 1.62% and Naspers 0.09% were among the tech gainers as Bytes Technology added 8.14% after reporting a higher pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2022 and saying business in the second half got off to a good start. Datatec gained 4.94%, PBT Group 15.34% and Telkom dialled in a 5.73% gain, taking the telecommunications group’s gain for the year to over 80% amid ongoing plans to release billions of rand trapped in its sprawling structure.
Anglo American (+1.03%), Sibanye Gold (+0.61%), Anglogold (0.95%), Richemont (+1.29%) and RMIH (+0.42%) all supported the 0.42% gain in the All Share index to 67,759.76 points.
Among the losers were resources groups Alphamin (-7.74%) and Thungela (-2.60%), miners Royal Bafokeng (-2.87%) and DRDGold (-1.61%) and banks Standard Bank (-2.38%) and FirstRand (-2.47%). Sasol slipped 2.14% as it tracked a 1.7% loss in Brent crude to $82.77 a barrel.
On the forex front, the rand remained under pressure, losing over 70 cents versus the dollar over the past week. At last count the local unit was changing hands at R15.09/$. “The R15.20-15.25 levels are crucial technical levels and a close above this tomorrow could leave the rand open for further weakness in the near term,” comments TreasuryONE.
Earlier in the session the rand was trading at R15.13 despite the dollar weakening on worse than expected US GDP numbers and weekly jobless claims coming in in line with expectations at 281,000.
In the commodities market, palladium (+2.27%) and platinum (+2.11%) saw solid gains to last trade at $2,009.14 and $1,034.35 respectively, with gold adding 0.32% to stay above the $1,800 level.
Indicators as at 17:00
Currencies
USDZAR 15.0962
EURUSD 1.1683
EURZAR 17.6316
GBPUSD 1.3803
GBPZAR 20.8311
AUDZAR 11.3942
CADZAR 12.2329
CNYZAR 2.3603
ZARJPY 7.5058
CHFZAR 16.5244
USDAOA 597.40
Bonds and equities
R186 8.10%
US 10 Year 1.56%
JSE 0.32%
FTSE -0.08%
S&P 500 0.78%
Commodities
Gold $1 797.96
Plat $1 021.18
Plad $1 987.68
Rhod $14 090.00
Irid $4 490.00
Ruth $618.00
Copp $9 857.75
Brent $84.11
Iron Ore 62.5% $122.36
Coal API4 $171.00
Gold ZAR R27 160.16
Plat ZAR R15 426.05
