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JSE focuses on MTN as Naspers, Richemont rally continues

Johannesburg - The JSE focused on MTN [JSE:MTN] on Wednesday morning as the company announced its first quarterly update under the new management headed by the newly-appointed group president and CEO Rob Shuter, who joined MTN in early March from Vodafone.

MTN was by far the busiest share on the market, with almost 7 million shares changing hands in early trade for more than R853m. This was almost three times as much any other share.

The update suggests a welcome revenue rise, but the share price did not respond and at mid-morning was 1.42% lower at R125.00.

READ: MTN revenue rises despite subscriber drop

The group said revenue increased by 7.1% year-on-year, supported by a 29.4% improvement in data revenue, but investors seemed to be more concerned by the 1.5% quarter-on-quarter group subscriber drop to 236.8 million. MTN did not provide earnings information.

The revenue increase could already have been discounted by the market as MTN’s share price gained 3.67% over the previous seven days. The company also said its post-paid business in South Africa still requires work.

Volumes were low on Wednesday, besides MTN, and most of the indices moved only marginally higher. Only six other shares traded more than a million shares in the first 90 minutes.

At that stage the All-share index was only 0.15% higher at 53 995 points and the Top 40 index 0.24% up at 47 253 points.

The broader indices were supported by the Industrial index, which represents by far the biggest share of the market and gained 0.32%, with the Financial index trading 0.20% higher.

The Resources index lost 0.32% on lower commodity prices, despite a slightly weaker rand, but this gave gold shares a boost and the index gained 1.9%.

The rand softened against the dollar in early trade on Wednesday as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s policy statement for hints on the US interest rate outlook. The local unit traded at R13.38 to the dollar, 0.34% weaker from its Tuesday New York close.

The Fed concludes its two-day meeting later on Wednesday, with the central bank largely expected to hold interest rates steady. The focus will be on language about future increases.

Among the top shares Naspers [JSE:NPN] and Richemont [JSE:CFR] continued their record-breaking runs. Naspers gained 0.49% to a new all-time high of R2 571.31 and Richemont lifted 1.29% to a new 52-week high of R113.22.

Anheuser-Busch InBev [JSE:ANH] at mid-morning was 0.35% higher at R1 513.48. The share made steady progress over the past month, gaining 4.67% over the previous seven days and 7.94% over the previous 30 days.

Shoprite [JSE:SHP] briefly traded at a 52-week intraday high of R213.38, but after profit-taking started the share dropped 0.11% to R210.78 by mid-morning.

Datatec [JSE:DTC] has made strong progress over the last month, after the company announced it is in talks to sell a major share of subsidiary Westcon’s operations for more than $800m.

The dual-listed company set a 52-week high on Wednesday when it gained 0.50% to R59.90. Before Wednesday the stock gained 8.15% over the previous seven days and is now 26.7% up over the past 90 days.

FirstRand [JSE:FSR] was by far the second-busiest share on the JSE, with more than 3 million shares sold in early trade. At mid-morning the stock was 0.75% stronger at R50.75, gaining more than 4% over the previous seven days.


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