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Johannesburg - South African stocks gained on
Monday, with the All Share [JSE:J203] index hitting a record close as investors shrugged
off a ratings outlook downgrade last week and focused on buying back oversold
shares such as MTN .
The All Share closed 0.84% higher at 33 205.01, a mere 130
points from an all-time high of 33 334.55 hit 11 months ago. The blue-chip
Top 40 - (Tradeable) [JSE:J200] added over 1% to 29 639.19.
Its record intra-day high is 30 195.81, also hit on Feb. 14 last
year.
“It does look possible that we can break up on the technical front.
Generally things are looking quite positive at the moment despite the problems
going on in Europe,” said Ferdi Heyneke, a portfolio manager at Afrifocus
Securities.
Fitch cut its outlook for Africa’s largest economy to negative last
week, saying it had seen limited progress on several long-standing structural
issues that had caused the country to fall behind its peers.
“The market is looking past these current problems and hoping for
some kind of resolve in Europe. That’s what’s driving things here at the
moment,” Heyneke said.
Stocks across the board were on an upward trajectory, led by iron
ore miner Assore, which jumped 4 percent to 220 rand.
Pan-African telecoms operator MTN gained over 3 percent to 133 rand
as investors moved to acquire a stock now considered oversold after a run of
negative news. MTN is down over 7 percent so far this year.
Luxury goods maker and retailer Richemont rose over 2.5 percent to
44.01 rand after third-quarter sales beat forecasts to rise 24 percent.
A 13 percent rise in first-half turnover for Shoprite helped lift
the grocer’s shares over 2 percent to 137.99 rand.
Some 116 million shares were traded, according to preliminary
exchange data, from 175 million on Friday.
