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Johannesburg - The JSE was stronger at noon on Friday due to some bargain hunting after selloffs in the market on Wednesday and Thursday which erased all the bourse’s gains since the beginning of the year.
The selloff was triggered by news that monetary easing in the US might end sooner than expected or the size of the funding might be decreased.
This led to a stronger greenback and a worldwide move out of perceived riskier assets.
At noon the JSE was trading 0.21% firmer at 39 754 points‚ with platinums‚ resources and gold counters‚ which were the hardest hit by the selloff‚ managing to regain same lost value‚ with the indices gaining 2.58%‚ 1.28% and 0.91% respectively.
“We had a very heavy two days of selling with resources bearing the brunt of it‚ but today we have seen a modest retreat due to a bit of a recovery in Wall Street and in European markets and we are taking our lead from these firmer global markets‚” said Ryan Wibberley‚ equity dealer at Investec Asset Management in Cape Town.
“We have seen some bargain hunting today especially in the platinum‚ gold and resource sectors and there is still a lot of caution in the market with industrials and financials treading water‚” he said.
On the JSE‚ global resource player Anglo American (AGL) added 1.71% to R265.30 and Sasol (SOL) lifted 2.16% to R390.88.
Platinum counters Impala Platinum (IMP) surged 3.64% to R141.98 and Anglo American Platinum (AMS) added 1.87% to R435.99.
Northam Platinum (NHM) was trading flat (0.03%) at R37.86 after reporting a 29.9% decline in diluted headline earnings per share to 36.3 cents for the six months ended December from 51.8c a year ago.
Bullion counters Harmony (HAR) garnered 1.22% to R58.25 and DRDGold (DRD) jumped 4.21% to R6.68.
