Johannesburg - The JSE steadied early on Friday after a strong sell-off in the past two trading sessions that erased its gains for the year to date.
Mining shares‚ which bore the brunt of selling the pressure‚ staged a tentative recovery on Friday morning.
At 9:49 the All Share [JSE:J203] index was flat (0.01%) at 39 672.93 after losing 1.88% on Thursday‚ with the Top 40 - (Tradeable) [JSE:J200] index also flat (0.04%)‚ but the resources and gold indices edged up 0.49% and 0.78% respectively.
“Investors are still licking their wounds following the deep selling on indecision on the future of US monetary stimulus measures. The key question now is how long the selling will last before the guys come back to find value in the market‚” Newstrading trader Devin Shutte said.
RMB analysts said in a note that the latest shock to global markets had been the eurozone purchasing managers indices. After months of increases pointing to an economic recovery‚ the February numbers have shown a sharp decline. The reading for France was particularly weak‚ raising concern about its economic divergence from Germany.
Leading Asian markets also generally rebounded from Thursday’s sell-off‚ with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 0.68% at the close in Tokyo.
On the JSE‚ global resources giant Anglo American (AGL) was up 0.82% to R262.99‚ Harmony (HAR) added 1.09% to R58.18 and Exxaro (EXX) regained 1.72% to R176.99 but Santam (SNT) was down 1.04% to R180.1