Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - The JSE opened flat on Friday, but it has retained a positive bias thanks to the weaker rand, which lifted resources counters. There was a lack of direction and investors did not want to commit ahead of the weekend, a trader said.
By 09:19 local time, the JSE All Share [JSE:J203] index was up a slight 0.04%, with gold miners gaining 0.25% and resources eking out a 0.06% gain. Banks lost 0.23% and financials were down 0.12%. Platinum miners (-0.01%), industrials (0.07%) and resources (0.06%) were all little changed.
The rand was bid at R6.84 to the dollar from R6.85 at the JSE's close on Thursday. Gold was quoted at $1 477.50 a troy ounce from $1 468.64/oz at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at $1 791.50/oz, from $1 779.00/oz previously.
Activity was on the resources side in morning trade, helped by the rand, the trader said. The market was digesting economic data from the US and China, the trader said.
Dow Jones Newswires reported that Asian stock markets were mostly lower on Friday, as Chinese data showing still-strong inflationary pressures renewed worries about further tightening measures from Beijing.
"The market is concerned the central bank may launch new measures over the weekend even though the consumer price index (CPI) data is in-line with expectations," said Wang Liemin, an analyst at Guosen Securities in Shanghai.
Those concerns were mirrored regionally, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average down 0.7%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 off 0.5%, China's Shanghai Composite Index down 0.5% and South Korea's Kospi Composite down 0.4%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index also fell 0.4%, while India's Sensex was 1.0% lower.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 13 points in screen trade.
China's March CPI rose 5.4% from a year earlier, above the 4.9% rise in February, and marked the fastest inflation rate since July 2008. Economists had expected a 5.3% rise.
By 09:19 local time, the JSE All Share [JSE:J203] index was up a slight 0.04%, with gold miners gaining 0.25% and resources eking out a 0.06% gain. Banks lost 0.23% and financials were down 0.12%. Platinum miners (-0.01%), industrials (0.07%) and resources (0.06%) were all little changed.
The rand was bid at R6.84 to the dollar from R6.85 at the JSE's close on Thursday. Gold was quoted at $1 477.50 a troy ounce from $1 468.64/oz at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at $1 791.50/oz, from $1 779.00/oz previously.
Activity was on the resources side in morning trade, helped by the rand, the trader said. The market was digesting economic data from the US and China, the trader said.
Dow Jones Newswires reported that Asian stock markets were mostly lower on Friday, as Chinese data showing still-strong inflationary pressures renewed worries about further tightening measures from Beijing.
"The market is concerned the central bank may launch new measures over the weekend even though the consumer price index (CPI) data is in-line with expectations," said Wang Liemin, an analyst at Guosen Securities in Shanghai.
Those concerns were mirrored regionally, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average down 0.7%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 off 0.5%, China's Shanghai Composite Index down 0.5% and South Korea's Kospi Composite down 0.4%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index also fell 0.4%, while India's Sensex was 1.0% lower.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 13 points in screen trade.
China's March CPI rose 5.4% from a year earlier, above the 4.9% rise in February, and marked the fastest inflation rate since July 2008. Economists had expected a 5.3% rise.
