JSE slips on weaker sentiment

Johannesburg - The mining‚ banking and financial sectors of the JSE came under heavy selling pressure on Monday keeping the overall market weaker despite a generally positive international trend.

Shares in African Bank Investments (ABL) plummeted as much as 24%‚ wiping R5bn off its market value during the course of the morning‚ after the unsecured lender posted a 26% decline in half-year profit to March.

“Abil results point to a lot of issues at the bottom end of the lending market. It is a reality check on the credit cycle. The underlying economy is much weaker than we imagined‚” said David Shapiro‚ analyst at Sasfin Securities.

At 12:38‚ the JSE All Share [JSE:J203] index was down 0.95% to 41 021.35 points‚ with the Top 40 - (Tradeable) [JSE:J200] blue chip index losing 0.93%.

The gold and platinum indices fell 5.03% and 3% respectively as the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) confirmed weekend reports of the submission of its wage demands to the Chamber of Mines for the 2013 wage negotiations.

The union has demanded that surface workers should receive a minimum salary of R7 000 and underground and opencast workers’ minimum should be set at R8 000 per month. For all other categories‚ the NUM has demanded an increase of 15%.

Banks and financial indices were down 3.74% and 1.92% respectively.

Further afield‚ major European stock exchanges were higher at noon but FTSE 100 was flat.

Among individual shares on the JSE‚ Anglo American Platinum (AMS) was down 3.68% to R278.68 and Impala Platinum (IMP) lost 3.24% to R94.82.

AngloGold Ashanti (ANG) fell 5.13% to R153.69 and Gold Fields (GFI) was down 5.46% to R52.32.

Abil was down 24.03% to R16‚ Absa (ASA) dropped 4.27% to R146.35‚ Capitec (CPI) gave up 4.98% to R190.05‚ RMB Holdings (RMH) was 4% weaker at R39.07 and FirstRand (FSR) gave up 3.66% to R30.27.