Share prices on JSE drift lower

Johannesburg - Share prices on the JSE were drifting lower on Friday morning on the second last day of the year, ending a fairly dismal year for the local market on a subdued note.

By midmorning on Tuesday the All-share index was 0.32% lower on 50 565 points, while the Top 40 index traded 0.46% softer on 43 774 points.

If the market stays on these levels for the rest of the morning it would mean that the All-share index will end the year only 2.4% higher, while the Top 40 index, with all the big shares on the JSE, will end the year about 1.5% lower.

The market started the year quite positive and on 29 May the All-share index was at a 52-week high of 54 474 points, which was about 10% higher for the year, before the market lost momentum which it could not regain again.

At that stage the Top 40 index was about 8.9% higher for the year with the index on a 52-week high of 48 448 points.

The little gains for the year were mostly due to the resources index, which made a very strong run for most of the year. The index was on 29 November 37.5% higher for the year, then lost momentum, but was at Friday’s levels still 21% higher for the year. By midmorning on Friday the index traded 0.13% higher than the day before.

The gold index, which gained 2.55% on Friday morning, was 21.7% higher for the year, but the index was in August this year a massive 163% higher.

The big loser this year was the industrial index - which includes most of the big capitalisation shares on the JSE - which lost 9% of its value of the course of the year.

The JSE was mostly in line with world markets, except Wall Street and the FTSE-index in London, which both gained about 14% for the year and reached new highs.

The broader markets performed poorly with the STOXX Europe 600 index around 1.6% down this year, reflecting political uncertainties in the region and concerns about the Italian banking industry. Among the political uncertainties were Brexit in June and the unexpected election of Donald Trump as US president in November.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan is 3.8% stronger for the year, the best performance in three years, but the Nikkei-index in Japan is only 0.4% higher with the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong only 0.6% stronger. The main index in mainland China lost 12%.