JSE opens in negative territory

Johannesburg - The JSE opened slightly in the red on Friday in line with most global stocks, which shunned US Federal chairperson Ben Bernanke and President Barack Obama's speeches announcing measures to improve economic growth and jobs.

Bernanke said the Fed would "certainly do all that it can" to stimulate growth while Obama announced a $447bn plan to revive the US economy.

"Clearly the market was not that impressed by the statements, due to a lack of detail on how they actually plan to get jobs and growth going," a local trader said.

By 09:20 local time, the JSE All Share [JSE:J203] index was down 0.22%. Banks shed 0.53%, financials were down 0.35%, and industrials fell 0.23%. Resources were 0.17% off.

Gold added 0.56% however and platinum miners rose 0.28%.

The rand was bid at R7.18, from R7.14 at the JSE's close on Thursday. Gold was trading at $1 875.83 a troy ounce from $1 855.32 at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at $1 853/oz, from $1 846.50/oz previously.

Dow Jones Newswires reported that European stocks were expected to start slightly lower on Friday, following on from the triple digit decline seen on the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, as a speech by Federal Reserve Chairperson Ben Bernanke failed to calm investor jitters over the state of the economy.

So far the reaction to Bernanke's speech has been negative.

Meanwhile President Obama outlined to Congress a plan to revive the US economy, which includes cutting payroll taxes for employees and businesses and extending unemployment benefits. This has helped sentiment improve somewhat, with Asian equity markets bouncing off lows.

Elsewhere, ECB president Trichet failed to lift market sentiment on Thursday despite a shift in tone to a more neutral policy stance and after the central bank left its main repo rate at 1.5%.

Asian shares were mostly mixed in cautious, choppy trade on Friday.

Markets initially came off lows after Chinese data eased concerns about further tightening measures and after US President Barack Obama's speech.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average closed 0.6% down, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2% and South Korea's Kospi Composite lost 1.7%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped 0.4%, while China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.2%.