Johannesburg - Naspers [JSE:NPN] pulled the JSE higher on Monday morning after a strong recovery in Asian stocks saw the share price of Tencent, Naspers’ Chinese subsidiary, gaining almost 5%.
Asian stocks rebounded strongly on Monday after three straight losing sessions as tensions over North Korea eased. The Hang Seng-index in Hong Kong traded almost 1% higher and Tencent, the biggest share on the Hong Kong market, traded 4.91% higher.
Naspers, also by far the biggest share on the JSE, responded to Tencent by gaining 3.11% to R2 850.39 per share. The share price wiped out the three days of losses at the end of last week. Naspers owns 34.4% of Tencent and this stake represents most of the South African company’s market value and income.
The rise in the Naspers share price pushed the industrial index 1.21% higher, but the other major industrial shares were more subdued. The result was that the All-share index was mid-morning 0.79% higher at 55 589 points and the Top 40-index 0.92% stronger at 49 216 points. The financial index gained 0.63% and the resources index was 0.31% higher.
Dual listed shares
There was little support for the dual-listed shares from the rand which recovered from Friday’s level of R13.49 to a dollar to R13.34. The rand received support from a weaker dollar, which dropped back on doubts that the Federal Reserve will hike US interest rates again this year after weak inflation data.
Friday's data showed the US consumer price index edged up just 0.1% last month after it was unchanged in June. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI rising 0.2% in July.
The US market also recovered on Friday after three days of losses and the European markets also started higher.
Some of the other big dual-listed shares were more subdued with Richemont [JSE:CFR] trading only 0.39% higher at R115.90 per share, while British American Tobacco [JSE:BTI] traded 0.62% softer at R842.80 per share.
The share price was before Monday’s trade more than 5% lower over the past 30 days as it faces a formal probe by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office following reports that the maker of Dunhill cigarettes bribed African government officials to influence tobacco legislation.
MTN [JSE:MTN] was only 0.07% higher at R170.53.
Financial shares received some support from the slightly stronger rand. FirstRand [JSE:FSR] traded 1.26% higher to reach a new 52-week high of R54.83 per share.
Standard Bank [JSE:SBK],which reached a 52-week high of R166 at the beginning of last week, gained 1.36% to R163.66. Barclays Africa [JSE:BGA] was 0.51% higher at R148.98.
Discovery [JSE:DSY] was again the star performer among the insurers and traded 0.49% higher at yet another 52-week high of R145.71 per share. The share is now more than 13% higher than a month ago. Sanlam [JSE:SLM] was 0.88% higher at R69.87 per share.
Glencore [JSE:GLN] was the busiest share on the JSE on Monday with more than 5.2 million shares being sold for more than R300m. The share price gained 0.80% to R56.70 per share. BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] was 0.63% higher at R234.26 per share.
South32 [JSE:S32] continued its strong run, which saw the share price gain more than 16% over the past month. The share gained another 1.85% to trade at a new all time high of R32.17 per share.
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