Johannesburg - In the absence of local market
moving news, the JSE tracked international markets for direction and
traded a tad firmer at midday on Monday.
At 12:00 local time, the JSE All Share
[JSE:J203] index was up 0.12% to
33 745.56 points, with industrials rising 0.42%. Banks were up 0.09%,
while resources were flat.
Platinums were 0.54% softer, gold shares shed 0.41%, and financials were down 0.31%.
The rand was trading at 7.95 to the US dollar, from 7.93 at
the JSE's close on Friday. Gold was quoted at $1 650.68 a troy ounce
from $1 669.11oz at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at
$1 575/oz, from $1 595/oz at the previous session.
A local trader said that overall the JSE was "just a touch
firmer on the day" in a day with "nothing terribly exciting" happening.
She added that US markets were off their lower levels.
European stock markets perked up on Monday, as investors used
steep declines last week as an opportunity to snap up battered stocks,
although moves to the upside were hampered by persistent worries about
Spanish debt, with the country's 10-year bond yield topping 6% for the
first time since December 2011, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
The corresponding German bond yield fell to a new low of
1.632%, according to Tradeweb. Last year, a sell-off in Italian and
Spanish bonds was hastened after yields climbed above 6%. At the same
time, the cost of protecting against a Spanish default hit a fresh
record in early trading on Monday. Around 07:30 GMT, Spain's five-year
credit default swap was 11 basis points wider at 510 basis points, its
widest level on record, according to data provider Markit.
Meanwhile, the Stoxx Europe 600 basic resource index added
0.3%, helped by Citigroup's upgrade for the UK mining sector to
overweight from neutral. The benchmark Stoxx 600 index rose 0.2% to
253.81. London's FTSE 100 index was up 0.5% at 5,684.01, Frankfurt's DAX
was flat 6,581.34 and Paris's CAC-40 rose 0.3% to 3,200.13.
Asian stock markets dropped on Monday on eurozone debt
stresses. While the early focus in markets was on China's decision over
the weekend to allow the yuan to trade in a wider daily range against
the US dollar, the impact on regional currencies and equities was
negligible.