The JSE climbed 1.66% higher today and ended Thursday trade in the green to see the All Share sitting pretty on 73,889 points.
This afternoon US CPI numbers came out exactly as the market predicted at 7.9%. The dollar reacted positively to the news, but the rand bucked the strong trend and firmed to R15.03/$ after it was touching R15.16/$ earlier.
By this evening, the rand drifted back towards the R15.00/$ mark after a short stint of euro strength in the afternoon.
“The rand remains on the front foot against the dollar from the start of the month, with the Brazilian Real keeping it company,” comments TreasuryONE.
On the commodity front, it was a fairly stable day while brent crude was the big mover of the day bouncing back from Wednesday’s lows to tick up 3.3% on Thursday.
“Gold hovers above the $2,000 mark, up 0.5% for the day. Platinum and palladium are both up 0.7% at the moment, trading at $1,083 and $2,960, respectively. The price of copper has dropped from the highs we saw earlier on this week and edges closer towards $10,100 yet again,” says TreasuryONE.
In company news, Sanlam recorded a 27% rise in headline earnings for the year ended December 2021 with the financial services group back to pre-pandemic levels. Sanlam’s share price added a healthy 3.55% on the stock exchange while subsidiary Santam lost 1.03% of its share price value.
Peers Old Mutual and Discovery added 1.85% and 2.61% respectively.
Printing and publishing group Caxton said revenue climbed back above R3 billion with the company benefiting from demand across its business operations.
Caxton added 2.11% to its share price by the close of trade.
