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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - The JSE held on to earlier gains at noon on Thursday, as expectations of an interest rate cut gained traction
following the release of better than expected producer price index (PPI) data.
By 12:02 local time the JSE all share index had gained 0.86%, with resources 1.34% firmer, and platinum miners rising 2.97%. Gold miners remained flat. Banks added 0.53%, financials edged up 0.37% and industrials climbed 0.63%.
The rand was bid at R7.30 to the dollar from R7.36 at the JSE's close on Wednesday. Gold was quoted at $1 241.19 a troy ounce from $1 238.45/oz at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at $1 534.50/oz from $1 513.o0/oz before.
Kevin Algeo, portfolio manager at Imara SP Reid, said the local market bounced from its Wednesday's oversold position, with platinum shares benefiting the most.
Algeo said that the market was expecting a rate cut.
"PPI, CPI and GDP suggest that the market expects a rate cut in September," he said.
South Africa's producer price index (PPI) registered growth of 7.7% year-on-year (y/y) in July compared with 9.4% y/y in June, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) data on Thursday showed.
The PPI increased 1.3% on a monthly basis after June's monthly increase of 4.0%. The PPI was expected to have reached 8.7% y/y, a survey by I-Net Bridge found, with forecasts among the leading economists surveyed ranging from 6.9% y/y to 9.3% y/y.
Dow Jones Newswires reports that Asian stock markets were mostly higher on Thursday, with Japanese technology exporters rising as the yen pulled back from recent sharp gains, while coal miners led China's market up.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average ended 0.69% higher, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 0.11 lower.
European stocks rose strongly on Thursday, taking their lead from a higher close on Wall Street and satisfactory earnings news from some of Europe's blue chip companies. In London, the FTSE100 was 0.72% stronger.