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Johannesburg - Markets worldwide were held hostage on Thursday morning by expectations that the European Central Bank will finally take some positive action to support the economy in the eurozone.
After New York closed lower on Wednesday, and the Asian markets gave up ground after their recent strong run, the major indices on the JSE also fell back, although the market recovered somewhat just before midday.
By midday the All-share index was 0.17% lower on 49 873 points while the Top 40 index lost 0.22% to 44 885. Most of the major indices were down including the Resources index, the front runner of the last few days, which lost 0.55% due to a stronger rand.
The only exception was the Financial 15 index which was 0.71% higher after Sanlam reached a new 52-week high and high volumes of FirstRand and Abil shares were also traded.
Expectations that the ECB will announce some further monetary easing after dithering for months, were stoked further on Tuesday when inflation in the eurozone slowed to 0.5% in May, which heightened fears that the European economies are facing a period of deflation.
Some monetary easing in Europe will have a major influence on South Africa. Europe is South Africa’s major trading partner and any stimulus to economic activity will boost local exports, while further monetary easing will increase the yield gap between the developed countries and the developing world and could lead to further investment inflows.
This is probably the reason why the rand held steady on Thursday at R10.71/$.
A lot of attention was on Sanlam [JSE:SLM] after the CEO Johan van Zyl mentioned at the company’s AGM on Wednesday that all business units are reporting earnings growth in excess of 20% so far in the current financial year.
Sanlam was one of the busiest shares on Thursday, gaining a solid 3.63% to a new 52-week high of R61.38. Sanlam’s share price improved with 22.8% over the last 12 months and 18.1% of that growth happened in the last six months. A total of 1.7 million shares to the value of R107m changed hands.
Another busy ticker was Firstrand [JSE:FSR] with 2.2 million shares to the value of R86.8m being sold. The share price increased with 0.55% to R39.87 and is now only 38c lower than the previous high that was reached on May 23. Firstrand have improved with 43% over the last twelve months.
Heavy trading volumes were also seen in African Bank [JSE:ABL] with 1.47 million shares being sold, but the high volumes are not good news for the share price. The share lost another 1.53% to R7.73 and is now 53% lower than a year ago.
Remgro [JSE:REM] is also back at record highs and gained 0.76% to R221.29.
In the Retail index Mr Price [JSE:MPC] is still trading at record highs and is now 33.2% higher than a year ago after gaining another 1.85% toR176.82.
After New York closed lower on Wednesday, and the Asian markets gave up ground after their recent strong run, the major indices on the JSE also fell back, although the market recovered somewhat just before midday.
By midday the All-share index was 0.17% lower on 49 873 points while the Top 40 index lost 0.22% to 44 885. Most of the major indices were down including the Resources index, the front runner of the last few days, which lost 0.55% due to a stronger rand.
The only exception was the Financial 15 index which was 0.71% higher after Sanlam reached a new 52-week high and high volumes of FirstRand and Abil shares were also traded.
Expectations that the ECB will announce some further monetary easing after dithering for months, were stoked further on Tuesday when inflation in the eurozone slowed to 0.5% in May, which heightened fears that the European economies are facing a period of deflation.
Some monetary easing in Europe will have a major influence on South Africa. Europe is South Africa’s major trading partner and any stimulus to economic activity will boost local exports, while further monetary easing will increase the yield gap between the developed countries and the developing world and could lead to further investment inflows.
This is probably the reason why the rand held steady on Thursday at R10.71/$.
A lot of attention was on Sanlam [JSE:SLM] after the CEO Johan van Zyl mentioned at the company’s AGM on Wednesday that all business units are reporting earnings growth in excess of 20% so far in the current financial year.
Sanlam was one of the busiest shares on Thursday, gaining a solid 3.63% to a new 52-week high of R61.38. Sanlam’s share price improved with 22.8% over the last 12 months and 18.1% of that growth happened in the last six months. A total of 1.7 million shares to the value of R107m changed hands.
Another busy ticker was Firstrand [JSE:FSR] with 2.2 million shares to the value of R86.8m being sold. The share price increased with 0.55% to R39.87 and is now only 38c lower than the previous high that was reached on May 23. Firstrand have improved with 43% over the last twelve months.
Heavy trading volumes were also seen in African Bank [JSE:ABL] with 1.47 million shares being sold, but the high volumes are not good news for the share price. The share lost another 1.53% to R7.73 and is now 53% lower than a year ago.
Remgro [JSE:REM] is also back at record highs and gained 0.76% to R221.29.
In the Retail index Mr Price [JSE:MPC] is still trading at record highs and is now 33.2% higher than a year ago after gaining another 1.85% toR176.82.
