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Resources keep JSE afloat

Johannesburg - It seems that the same trading pattern as last week will be the norm this week on the JSE.

Last week share prices rose sharply in early trading as bargain hunters bought shares that lost some of their value, only for profit takers to take over and put a stop to a promising run.

The intraday graph of Monday’s trading again shot upwards almost vertically, and the rest of the morning the graph is moving slowly downwards, although the indices were by midday still higher than Friday's close.

By midday, the All-share index was 0.49% higher on 49 093 points and the Top 40-index rose 0.59%  to 44 000. All the major indices except gold were higher, with the most action in the resources sector, which jumped 1.29%.

As last week the All-share index is hovering around 49 000 points, close to record levels, but concerns about the valuations of some of the high flyers are causing investors to be cautious.

That was the reason the market closed somewhat lower last week, although the declines were quite modest and the JSE Top-40 index retreated by less than 0.4%.

Amongst the larger index constituents that declined were BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] which fell 2.8% during the past week, Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] dropped 3% and SAB Miller [JSE:SAB] 2.4%.

Some of these shares opened higher on Monday. BHP Billiton traded 2.13% higher at R339.45 and the other heavyweight in the sector, Anglo American [JSE:AGL] improved with 1.8% to R284.95.  Anglo is trading close to its 52-week high but is still well below its all time high.

The attention was on the platinum sector to see if striking workers return to work. Amplats was still 0.13% lower on R487.99.

Lonmin [JSE:LON] says it is expecting a massive return to work on Wednesday, despite news of intimation and the death of some returning mine workers. The market is still giving Lonmin the benefit of the doubt and the share price rose 0.51% to R49.65.

It seems the market has expected and discounted the news that Lonmin’s underlying earnings before interest and tax has shrunk to $34m for the six months to the end of March, from $93m a year earlier.

Amongst the heavyweights in the industrial sector SAB was another 0.47% lower on R558.05. Naspers [JSE:NPN] made a strong recovery and by midday the media company was 2.98% higher on R1 070.97.

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Rand - Dollar
19.00
-0.5%
Rand - Pound
24.00
-0.5%
Rand - Euro
20.53
-0.3%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.36
-0.1%
Rand - Yen
0.13
-0.5%
Platinum
903.65
+0.8%
Palladium
1,016.75
+1.5%
Gold
2,210.49
+0.7%
Silver
24.61
-0.1%
Brent Crude
86.09
-0.2%
Top 40
68,260
+0.9%
All Share
74,450
+0.7%
Resource 10
57,117
+2.6%
Industrial 25
103,835
+0.6%
Financial 15
16,488
-0.2%
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