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Many investors are away for the long weekend and it seems that those who were active mostly bided their time for important economic news due out later in the week.
Imara SP Reid said in their daily Market Snapshot that the upcoming futures close out on Thursday will also play a role in general trading action. This will be slightly exacerbated by Tuesday's public holiday as market participants continue to roll trading positions.
On Monday morning the All-share index opened about 200 points lower than Friday’s close and by midday was still about 100 points lower. At midday the index traded only 0.20% lower at 51 723 points, while the Top 40 index was only 0.26% lower at 46 008 points. Analysts said the Top 40-index is vulnerable to test the important near-term support level of 45 740 points again.
The Financial and Industrial indices hardly moved, with the Financial index losing 0.23% and the Industrial index 0.13%. The Gold and Resources indices were again the most volatile, with the Gold index losing 1.38% and the Resources index 0.80%.
The mood was somewhat dampened by the collapse of talks between Greece and the European Union on Greece’s debt problem. Wall Street closed lower on Friday and that example was followed by the European and Asian markets on Monday morning.
European Union officials blamed the collapse of debt talks on the Greek government, which it said had failed to offer any new concessions to secure funding it needs to repay €1.6bn to the International Monetary Fund.
Investors' attention is also focused on interest rates in the US. The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee will hold a regular meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday this week and is expected to leave interest rates on hold.
But the market will be focusing on policymakers' comments for clear signals on when the US central bank will make its first interest rate hike in nearly a decade.
Expectations of an increase in US interest rates last week led to the biggest outflow in a week of equity funds in emerging markets since the 2008 financial crisis.
On the domestic front, May consumer price inflation and April retail sales data are due to be released on Wednesday.
The platinum sector attracted a great deal of attention on Monday morning. Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS], the world’s largest producer of the precious metal, said first-half profit will climb at least 20% due to the improvement in operational performance following protracted industrial action in the comparative period last year.
READ: Amplats sees profit rising at least 20%
The share price did however not respond and the stock traded 0.55% lower at R293.61. Amplats recovered somewhat over the past few days but is still 11.2% lower over the past 30 days.
Anglo American [JSE:AGL], the controlling shareholder in Amplats, traded 0.06% lower at R192.75.
Lonmin [JSE:LON], which lost more than 5% of its value on Friday when Glencore [JSE:GLN] distributed its interest of just more than 23% in the platinum miner among its shareholder, recovered on Monday morning and by midday was 0.08% higher at R24.97. Glencore lost 0.90% to R53.72.
Investors continue to nibble at construction shares which are trading at 52-week lows and on Monday morning the attention was on Basil Read [JSE:BSR], the biggest mover in morning trade. The share gained 12.47% or 50c to R4.51.
