Cape Town - The JSE closed flat on Thursday as markets failed to find a clear direction in anticipation of sovereign ratings decisions from Moody’s and S&P.
Banking stocks, which are the most sensitive to the ratings decisions, traded weaker.
This saw stocks such as Standard Bank [JSE:SBK] and Nedbank [JSE:NED] weakening by 1.40% and 1.17% respectively. MTN [JSE:MTN] and Mr Price [JSE:MRP] also came under pressure to lose 2.93% and 1.68%.
Other top losers of the day included Ascendis Health [JSE:ASC] which lost 6.48%, as well as Balwin Properties [JSE:BWN] and Clover Industries [JSE:CLR] which lost 4.76% and 3.77% respectively.
Brait [JSE:BAT] and Steinhoff [JSE:SNH] traded weaker ending the day down 1.12% and 0.20%.
Woolworths [JSE:WHL] jumped 4.18% whilst Naspers [JSE:NPN] broke consecutive sessions of losses to close the day up 0.51%. BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] and Richemont [JSE:CFR] buoyed the blue chip index as they gained 0.94% and 0.51% respectively.
EOH Holdings [JSE:EOH] rebounded on Thursday's session to close the up 4.15% at R84.67 per share, while Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP] and Barloworld [JSE:BAW] firmed by 5.88% and 1.14%.
Net 1 UEPS jumped 19.21% to close at R180.00 per share.
All share
The JSE Top-40 index was unchanged while the All-Share index only managed to gain 0.04%. The Financials index came under pressure to close the day down 0.74%. However the Industrials index and the Resources index firmed by 0.10% and 0.66%.
The rand was weakened earlier on as it broke out above R14/$ to reach a low of R14.04 against the greenback. But it managed to rebound marginally towards the close due to the weakening US dollar.
The US dollar lost ground against major currency pairs as the US dollar index broke below 93 index points to reach a low of 92.729 index points. At 17:00 the USD/ZAR was trading at R13.92/$.
Brent Crude held above $63 per barrel as it peaked at an intra-day high of $63.84 per barrel. The precious liquid held on to the minor gains to trade at $63.43 per barrel when the JSE closed.
Gold traded softer and bottomed out at $1 285.74per ounce. Despite the US dollar coming under pressure in the afternoon Gold failed to gain any significant upside momentum. Gold was trading at $1289.87/Oz just after the JSE closed.
Palladium carried a lot of momentum from the open to peak at $1013.65/Oz. However it subsequently came under pressure during the course of the day and it was recorded at $1004.32/Oz just after the JSE closed. Platinum had gained 0.20% to trade at $940.09/Oz when the JSE closed.