Johannesburg – The JSE ended 65 points below Thursday’s record high of 40 604.59 on Friday as the stronger rand saw a sell-off in resource shares.
At 17:00‚ the All Share
[JSE:J203] index was down 0.16% at 40 538.96 points‚ with the resources index giving up 1.35%‚ and the gold index dropping 3.39%.
Dealers said the rand had moved the stock market today‚ as the JSE looked set for another record high when it looked like the rand was going above R9.10‚ but after it moved back below R9‚ there was a sell-off in resource and gold shares.
At 17:00 the rand was at R8.9626/$ after weakening to as much as R9.0829/$ in intraday trade.
Elsewhere‚ leading European shares were mostly higher with UK’s FTSE 100 edging up 0.20%‚ while the Dow Jones index was up 0.29% in early trade.
Among individual stocks on the JSE‚ Anglo American (AGL) lost 1.02% to R266.40‚ AngloGold Ashanti (ANG) gave up 3.97% to R251.40‚ Gold Fields (GFI) shed 2.59% to R107 and Harmony Gold (HAR) dropped 4.10% to R64.25.
ArcelorMittal SA (ACL) was down 1.08% to R34.70‚ but Sasol (SOL) was up 0.30% to R379.51‚ while Barloworld (BAW) was down 1.94% to R88.77.
In banking Nedbank (NED) gained 2.15% to R195.42 and Abil (ABL) was up 2.86% to R31.30.