Johannesburg - The JSE ended flat on Tuesday
moving in line with a sideways Wall Street, with a local trader saying the
bourse was seeing some buying, but with market players remaining cautious.
At 17:00 the JSE all share index was flat, down 0.17%, resources
weakened 0.59%, gold producers fell 2.40% and platinum counters declined
0.72%.
Banks and financials collected 0.69% and 0.45% respectively, while
industrials were unchanged.
The rand was bid at 7.49 to the dollar, from 7.47 when the JSE closed on
Monday. Gold was quoted at $1 164.32 a troy ounce from $1 170.60 at the
JSE's last close, and platinum was at $1 454/oz, from $1 452/oz at its
previous close.
"We were down this morning, but we ended flat. The GDP figures were
better than expected, I think the market still has a bit of legs to it," the
trader said.
"The Dow is slightly down. I think there is still a bit of upside in the
market; markets just don't want to fall.
"The overseas guys are buying and pushing the market up, but our local
guys are selling. The heavyweights are looking a bit pricey. I wouldn't rush
into the market. The guys are a bit cautious," he said.
Dow Jones Newswire reported that US stocks opened lower on Tuesday, led
by the energy and financial sectors as crude-oil futures fell and worries
about the financial sector increased after China's banking regulator warned
the nation's lenders to strictly comply with capital requirements or face
sanctions.
The Djia was down 60 points, or 0.6%, to 10 389, recently. Boeing led the
measure's declines, dropping 1.7%. Hewlett-Packard was also among the
measure's worst performers, falling 1.1% despite the company reporting a 14%
jump in quarterly profit, as investors were disappointed by an 8.4% drop in
revenue in the quarter.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2%. The Standard & Poor's
500 edged 0.1% lower. Declines in its energy and financial sectors were
offset by gains in its telecommunications and health-care categories.
The Commerce Department's revisions to several of its third-quarter
estimates tempered sentiment on Tuesday. The revisions showed lower gross
domestic product and consumer spending and a wider trade deficit than
previously estimated. However, that was offset in part by the fifth monthly
increase in US home prices in September, as well as a sequential rise in
home prices in the third quarter, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home-
prices indexes.
Third-quarter US GDP was revised lower, to 2.8% from the 3.5% gain
originally estimated, although the revision was in line with forecasts. It
showed overall consumer spending rose 2.9% in the third quarter and
contributed 2.1 percentage points to GDP at annual rates, smaller than prior
estimates. A wider trade deficit also contributed to the lower third-quarter
GDP number. Still, the rise in GDP was the first since the second quarter of
2008 and the strongest in nearly two years
At the time the JSE closed, the Djia had weakened 0.47%.
- I-Net Bridge