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Johannesburg - The JSE remained in the red by noon on Thursday in what a local trader was the market taking time off to consolidate with participants taking profits.
By noon, the JSE all share index had weakened 0.64%, with resources falling 1.60% and gold counters losing 2.47%, while platinum miners were unchanged. Banks edged up 0.63%, financials collected 0.62% and industrials were flat, down 0.02%.
The rand was last bid at R8.04 to the dollar from R8.06 when the JSE closed on Wednesday. Gold was quoted at $965.44/oz a troy ounce from $978.30/oz at the JSE's last close, and platinum was at $1 249/oz, from $1 233.50/oz at its previous close.
"It's not that bad. It's not surprising to see some profit taking. Markets have run quite hard in the last month and now they are exhausted and we are seeing consolidation and profit taking," a local trader said.
"At the moment it's mixed across the board, but in general I am not too worried about what we are seeing," he said.
Dow Jones Newswires reports that the FTSE 100 stayed up, but failed to maintain much upward momentum, said Tim Hughes at IG Index.
He said banks are rebounding after the Barclays-led selloff which looked overdone. However he noted mining stocks are weighing heavily following the fall in commodity prices. He expects the fairly narrow range-bound trading between 4300-4500 over the past few weeks to continue for the time being.
Elsewhere, the Bank of England is expected to hold rates at 11:00 GMT. Hughes thinks the US initial jobless claims at 12:30 GMT could set the tone for the day.
The FTSE 10 was last up 0.42%.
US stocks are expected to open a touch higher on Thursday says David Morrison at GFT. Calls DJIA to open up 40 points at 8715.0 and S&P 500 to open six points higher at 937.5. Sees a degree of caution particularly after the disappointing ADP unemployment figures on Wednesday. "Traders see [unemployment] as the one area where we are still waiting for evidence of improvement, or it could indicate...that recovery isn't as imminent as first thought." US initial claims are at 12:30 GMT. The Dow front month futures contract trades +0.4% at 8700.0 and the S&P 500 trades +0.4% at 935.8.
- I-Net Bridge