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Johannesburg - The JSE was sharply lower at one stage on Thursday morning.
This was after a big sell-off on Wall Street, followed by the Asian markets, spooked investors about high equity valuations.
On Wall Street the market was mainly concerned about technical stocks and all the major shares were down.
On the JSE, however, the financial sector was under pressure after quite a few banking shares reached new highs earlier in the week.
There is also some nervousness about the SA Reserve Bank's interest rate announcement on Thursday afternoon, although the general consensus is that there will be no change.
By midday the main indices recovered some of the losses, but the All-share index was still 0.55% lower on 47 392 and the Top 40-index declined by 0.58% to 42 695.
The Dow Jones index on Wall Street closed 0.60% weaker on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 losing 0.70%.
American investors ignored good news about retail sales in the US and concentrated on tech stores.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, said some tech investors were sceptical after Facebook announced a $2bn deal to buy virtual reality company Oculus so soon after it announced a deal to buy WhatsApp for $19bn. Facebook shares fell 6.9%.
Investors are clearly worried about some of the high flying tech stocks, whose earnings are not even close to matching their high valuations.
In Hong Kong Tencent was 6.1% downafter announcing that it was buying 28% of the South Korean online gambling firm CJ Games for $500m.
The Tencent share price is bad news for Naspers, and by midday the share price was another 5.35% lower at R1 112.05. At one stage the stock traded at R1 101.07.
The big influence of Naspers on the industrial sector pushed that index 0.83% down.
Initially most of the banking shares were lower on Thursday morning, because investors took profits after the previous day’s record highs.
By midday Nedbank was 0.53% lower at R223.75, after reaching a high of R224.95 on Wednesday.
FirstRand, which also reached a high of R36.65, was still 1.56% lower at R36.08.
Standard Bank was at R136.70, 0.15% higher than Wednesday’s high of R136.55.
Imara SP Reid said in its market snapshot on Thursday morning that the high reached by the banking index earlier in the week was mainly driven by short-covering rather than additional news of a fundamental nature.
Capitec was another 1.61% higher at R194.98, after releasing solid annual results on Wednesday.
This was after a big sell-off on Wall Street, followed by the Asian markets, spooked investors about high equity valuations.
On Wall Street the market was mainly concerned about technical stocks and all the major shares were down.
On the JSE, however, the financial sector was under pressure after quite a few banking shares reached new highs earlier in the week.
There is also some nervousness about the SA Reserve Bank's interest rate announcement on Thursday afternoon, although the general consensus is that there will be no change.
By midday the main indices recovered some of the losses, but the All-share index was still 0.55% lower on 47 392 and the Top 40-index declined by 0.58% to 42 695.
The Dow Jones index on Wall Street closed 0.60% weaker on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 losing 0.70%.
American investors ignored good news about retail sales in the US and concentrated on tech stores.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, said some tech investors were sceptical after Facebook announced a $2bn deal to buy virtual reality company Oculus so soon after it announced a deal to buy WhatsApp for $19bn. Facebook shares fell 6.9%.
Investors are clearly worried about some of the high flying tech stocks, whose earnings are not even close to matching their high valuations.
In Hong Kong Tencent was 6.1% downafter announcing that it was buying 28% of the South Korean online gambling firm CJ Games for $500m.
The Tencent share price is bad news for Naspers, and by midday the share price was another 5.35% lower at R1 112.05. At one stage the stock traded at R1 101.07.
The big influence of Naspers on the industrial sector pushed that index 0.83% down.
Initially most of the banking shares were lower on Thursday morning, because investors took profits after the previous day’s record highs.
By midday Nedbank was 0.53% lower at R223.75, after reaching a high of R224.95 on Wednesday.
FirstRand, which also reached a high of R36.65, was still 1.56% lower at R36.08.
Standard Bank was at R136.70, 0.15% higher than Wednesday’s high of R136.55.
Imara SP Reid said in its market snapshot on Thursday morning that the high reached by the banking index earlier in the week was mainly driven by short-covering rather than additional news of a fundamental nature.
Capitec was another 1.61% higher at R194.98, after releasing solid annual results on Wednesday.
* Fin24 is part of Media24, a subsidiary of Naspers. Naspers has a 34% stake in Tencent.
