Johannesburg - Share prices hardly moved on the JSE on Thursday morning, as the market seeks direction.
After three days of gains when bargain hunters utilised buying opportunities in an oversold market, the market seems to have lost momentum.
Investors are not sure if current market conditions warrant a further run in share prices.
By midday on Thursday all the major indices had hardly moved, although gold was the only index which was down.
Overseas markets were also mixed, because a drop in Apple’s share price offset other positive factors on Wall St. Other technology stocks followed Apple lower.
Apple sank by more than 4% amid news that hackers had stolen intimate photos of celebrity iPhone users from its iCloud system.
Analysts also cited profit-taking ahead of an expected new iPhone launch on September 9.
By midday the All-share index was only 0.04% higher on 51 816 points, while the Top 40-index rose by only 0.10% to 46 435 points.
Of the other indices the financial index moved only 01.4% higher, industrial shares was 0.08% higher and resources 0.05% higher.
The gold price and gold shares are still under pressure and the index dropped 0.61%.
On the local front MTN [JSE:MTN] gained another 1.37% to R253.92 on Thursday morning after the company announced that it has made a deal with IHS for the transfer of business towers.
This is expected to reduce MTN Nigeria's operating costs and drive network efficiency.
MTN’s share price has already gained 12.4% over the past few weeks and over the past 12 months the gain has been 40.7%.
The share prices of insurance companies are also trading at highs, after Discovery [JSE:DSY] announced profit growth of 57% and Sanlam [JSE:SLM] announced that its earnings will be between 25% and 30% higher.
The gains were, however, not big and were just enough to beat the previous day's record.
Discovery improved by 0.60% to R102.47, while Sanlam improved by only 0.18% to R68.41.
Rand Merchant Insurance [JSE:RMI], the holding company of Discovery, MMI and Outsurance, edged to a new high of R34.77 compared to Wednesday’s high of R34.63.
Compared to twelve months ago the share is now 34.5% higher.
MediClinic International [JSE:MDC] continued its strong run of the past six months, in which the share price improved by 41.3%, with another rise of 0.57% to a record of R96.10.
On the mining front African Rainbow Minerals [JSE:ARI] (ARM) and Assore [JSE:ASR], which are both trading are 52-week lows, reported surprisingly strong results on Thursday morning, but it did nothing for their share prices.
ARM posted a rise of 9.5% in full-year headline earnings on Thursday, lifted by a solid performance in its platinum arm, but the share price sunk to yet another low.
By midday the share traded 2.08% lower on R175 and the share price is now 10% lower for the past twelve months.
ARM’s headline earnings was boosted by an almost 70% increase in the group's platinum earnings, but investors are apparently more concerned about the group's future prospects.
An oversupply of iron ore and manganese is putting pressure on prices and future income.
Assore, which has a big exposure to iron ore and manganese, increased its headline earnings for the financial year to June 30 by 19.7%.
Its share price increased by only 1.09% to R324.72 and is now only about R10 higher than the low set last month.
- Fin24