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What to watch on the JSE

Port Elizabeth - Good news all around pushed the JSE higher last week, with only Tuesday chalking up losses during the short work week.

Wednesday and Thursday saw a quick reversal of fortunes, with indications that the flow of good news and the upward trend in share prices will continue.

The most gratifying news was that chances of eventually finding a solution to the long and devastating strike on platinum mines are improving.

Hopefully both sides at the table will come back from the Easter weekend with renewed motivation to sort out their differences.

Platinum shares increased quickly, with both Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] and Implats [JSE:IMP] rising around 2.5%. Lonmin [JSE:LON] added nearly 5%.

Not only did platinum shares push higher, but mining shares overall did.

BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] and Assore [JSE:ASR] were two of the more prominant winners.

Other commodity producers such as Sasol [JSE:SOL] and Omnia, continued their stronger trend of late.

The rest of the markets seemed to focus only on the good news, ignoring bad news such as the even worse than expected retail sales figures.

StatsSA announced on Tuesday that retail sales in February were only 2.2% higher than a year ago, compared to growth of more than 6% in January.

During the week Old Mutual and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) both said that they had adjusted their growth forecasts for the SA economy - downwards, of course.
 
The market rather chose to take its cue from the announcement that the American economy is picking up more momemtum.

Just about all the industrial, retail and financial shares on the JSE ended the week with quite decent increases.

Losses were few and far between and mostly limited to a couple of cents.

Pick n Pay [JSE:PIK] remained strong on continued media positive media coverage after the retail chain published good results two weeks ago.

It seems the long-awaited re-rating of its share price is starting to happen.

The week ahead

Another short week awaits, with probably the same focus on good news and any bad news will be met with a "bad news, what bad news?" shrug.

StatsSA will announce hotel occopancy figures, which will only put the official stamp on what we know already.

The last few months were good for anybody in the tourism sector, as well as any retailers catching the eye of the large number or local and foreign tourists.

Even wealthy South Africans shun expensive dollar and euro holiday destinations, while poor foreigners come to feel and holiday like millionaires in SA.

The bad news of high consumer inflation - the March consumer price data is due this week - won't dent the euphoria.
 
Anglo American [JSE:AGL] and Kumba Iron Ore [JSE:KIO] will tell investors about their first quarter of the new year and Clicks Stores [JSE:CLS] will publish its interim results.
 
Cynics (some would say realists) will be quick to warn that a correction will come sometime, but probably not this week.

*After chasing money on the JSE for 15 years, Adriaan Kruger is now living a relaxed lifestyle in Wilderness and lectures economics part-time at NMMU.
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