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Last week's strong run in industrial share prices, and retailers in particular, came to a halt on Monday morning, while Friday's big losers - resources and gold - recovered again.
The end result was that the major indices changed very little by midday on Monday. At that stage the All-share index was only 0.05% lower at 50 571 points, while the Top 40 index lost 0.18% to 44 054 points.
The Resources index, which lost more than 1.5% on Friday on weaker commodity prices, gained 1.16% on Monday and the volatile Gold index was 5.69% higher.
The big loser was the Industrial index which slipped 0.67%. Most of last week's front runners, particularly retail shares, traded lower on Monday morning although the losses were not big.
The technical analysts of Imara SP Reid said Monday's slightly weaker performance was anticipated as the fundamentals of some shares are a bit stretched after last week's strong run, and profit-taking was to be expected.
The overall technical picture for the JSE - and particularly for the Top 40 index - remains well supported, but it is realistic to expect profit-taking as shares are currently overbought on the short term.
Resources shares recovered on Monday morning but the trend indicators show no signs of improvement, although the slightly weaker dollar will go some way towards improving sentiment.
Among the major resources shares Anglo American [JSE:AGL] improved by 1.99% to R240.59, after two of its subsidiaries - iron ore producer Kumba [JSE:KIO] and platinum producer Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] - both made solid gains on Monday morning. Kumba was 2.63% higher at R264.28 and Amplats improved by 4.11% to R336.50.
Assore [JSE:ASR], the iron ore producer which lost half of its value over the last six months, traded another 2.67% lower at R192.09.
Glencore [JSE:GLN] improved by 1.05% to R57.73 after it announced that it would close its coal mines in Australia for three months to bring production in line with demand.
Imara SP Reid said now that the industrial index has breached the resistance area at around 61 180 points in a decisive manner, the sustainability of recent advances will be tested over the next day or two.
But on Monday morning the emphasis was on profit-taking. By midday Naspers [JSE:NPN] was 3.48% lower after it gained almost 12% last week and closed 8% higher on Friday on very high volumes, which represented almost 60% of total trade.
The high-flying retailers also came back to earth on Monday. The Spar group [JSE:SPP] was 0.81% weaker on Monday. Last week it rose 17% on strong results due to an acquisition in Ireland. Pick n Pay [JSE:PIK] traded unchanged at R24.20, stopping last week's gain of 10%.
