The JSE spent another day in the red and closed 1.28% down to see the All Share Index settle on 72,360 points.
The JSE announced it would be changing its listing requirements “to increase exposure to the rapidly growing environmental, social and governance investment sector and to allow the sale of bonds to raise funds to fight climate change,” reports Bloomberg.
The stock exchange will also cater to climate-related bonds with the proceeds going towards funding climate change initiatives.
The rand remained strong and traded sideways for most of the day, holding on to the R15.20/$ to R15.50/$ range. Local GDP did come in slightly under the expectation, but the focus has shifted away from data and more into headlines over the last fortnight, comments TreasuryONE.
Shoprite added 0.84% today after seeing good half-year growth that saw profits and sales increase despite the effects of the July riots last year. Sales increased by 10% to R91 billion while the supermarket business, which represents 80% of the group’s sales increased by 11%.
Retail peers, Spar (-1.12%) and Woolworths (-0.40) closed down while Pick ‘n Pay added 0.79% to its share price.
On the commodities front, it was another day in the green with gold trading at $2,035, platinum at $1,167 and palladium is at $3,120. The oil price came under pressure with Brent trading at $129 a barrel.
Sibanye Stillwater shares slumped 4.69% with labour unions NUM and Amcu announced a strike planned to commence on Wednesday at the mining company’s gold mines after management and unions failed to come to an agreement.
Gold counters, Gold Fields (5.01%), Anglo Gold (2.42%), DRD Gold (0.87%), and Harmony (4.03%) all closed in the green.
Royal Bafokeng Platinum tripled its net cash pile in 2021 with core profit increasing by over 28%. Revenue increased nearly 23% with the RBPlat share price spending most of the day in the green before losing its way before close to giving up 2.20%.
Mining peers, Impala Platinum lost 3.89% and Anglo American Platinum added 0.88%.
Heavyweights Naspers and Prosus fared much better today after Prosus said yesterday that it would write off a 27% stake valued at $769 million in Russian internet firm, the VK Group.
VK owns two of Russia’s largest social media sites, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, and has been accused of spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation.
Naspers and Prosus added 4.56% and 2.67% respectively.
