Losses in Naspers and Prosus dominated the JSE as the local tech heavyweights continued to bleed from yet another blow from social media and gaming giant Tencent.
Adding to uncertainty in the midst of a two-day selloff in the technology sector, the most valuable company in China announced it was suspending new user registrations for its WeChat services. Naspers and Prosus extended losses by 7.33% and 7.30% on the day respectively, dragging the overall JSE index down 1.04%. Naspers has a 15% weighting in the local bourse and a 29% exposure to Tencent through its subsidiary Prosus.
According to Bloomberg Tencent’s 9% drop on Tuesday, the most since October 2011, took losses in market value over the last two days to over $100bn.
Reuters reports Prosus is also facing investor criticism for the $144m in transaction fees[link Reuters article] it will pay when it buys a block of parent company Naspers’ shares.
Chemicals and energy group Sasol gave up 2.96% despite posting a “satisfactory” full-year performance in its energy business as bumper oil prices helped offset a fall in chemical production.
Among the winners were retailers Spar (+2.32%), Mr Price (+2.18%), Truworths (+0.63%) and The Foschini Group (+1.60%), and financial services players Santam (+2.31%), Absa (+0.62%) and Nedbank (+1.64%).
On the forex markets, the rand ended back at opening levels after threatening again to break the R15/$-level, with the unit last trading at R14.82 to the US dollar.
In the commodity space, PGMs are under the pump, with platinum and palladium both losing further ground today, reports TreasuryONE. Platinum is down 1.3% for the day and currently quoted at $1,048.25, while palladium is down 1.69% at $2,612.15. The price of gold has dropped below $1,800 today, while copper is softer by 0.5%. Brent Crude remained flat at $74.53 while WTI is at $71.42.
Indicators as at 17:00
Currencies
USDZAR 14.8105
EURUSD 1.1824
EURZAR 17.5073
GBPUSD 1.3878
GBPZAR 20.5479
AUDZAR 10.9258
CADZAR 11.7808
CNYZAR 2.2738
ZARJPY 7.4104
CHFZAR 16.1909
USDAOA 639.00
Equities and bonds
R186 7.33%
US 10 Year 1.24%
JSE -0.99%
FTSE -0.34%
S&P 500 -0.59%
Commodities
Gold $1 796.94
Plat $1 052.12
Plad $2 604.44
Rhod $18 390.00
Irid $5 590.00
Ruth $748.00
Copp $9 709.15
Brent $74.41
Iron Ore 62.5% $215.16
Coal API4 $131.50
Gold ZAR R26 621.43
Plat ZAR R15 587.01
Indicators brought to you by TreasuryONE
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