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Cape Town - The JSE closed weaker on Wednesday as the local bourse followed the downward trend of other major global indices.
The Dow Jones December Futures contract was down by more than 150 points this morning while in Germany, the DAX took a hit. It was 1% lower by the time the JSE closed.
Netcare [JSE:NTC] was one of the biggest losers of the day on the JSE as it lost 6.73% to close at R23.55 per share. This was on the back of a trading statement released this morning which indicated it expects lower earnings. The statement also indicated Netcare expects headline earnings and headline earnings per share to decrease by between 5% and 10%.
Brait [JSE:BAT] released a relatively weak set of 6 months results which showed a decrease of its Net Asset Value of 14.8% compared to the same period last year. For the full-year this equates to a decrease of 36.6%. As a result, the stock traded under pressure for the better part of today to eventually close down 2.03% at R47.70 per share.
Nampak [JSE:NPK] also came under significant pressure to lose 5.86%, while EOH Holdings [JSE:EOH] and Northam Platinum [JSE:NHM] fell by 3.47% and 4.67% respectively.
Miners traded softer Wednesday due to weaker metal commodity prices. This resulted in stocks such as Anglo American [JSE:AGL], Glencore [JSE:GLN] and BHP Billiton closing the day 3.06%, 2.20% and 2.61% weaker.
Naspers [JSE:NPN] opened weaker but managed to close the day firmer as it was buoyed by good 3rd quarter results from its Hang Seng-listed associate Tencent Holdings.
Tencent reported a jump in quarterly net profit of 69% which exceeded the estimates of most analysts. As a result Naspers reached a new all-time high of R3 739.89 per share, before retracting slightly to close at R3 661.42 per share, up 1.95% for the day.
Gold miners AngloGold Ashanti [JSE:ANG] and Gold Fields [JSE:GFI], meanwhile, benefitted from higher gold prices to close up 2.15% and 2.47% respectively.
All-Share
The JSE All-Share index closed the day down 0.56% while the blue chip Top-40 index lost 0.51%. The Resources index came under pressure as it lost 2.26%, while the Financials lost 0.61%. The Industrials Index managed to record aslight gain of 0.11%.
Despite a weakening US dollar, the rand failed to gain any significant momentum from Tuesday.
The local currency weakened to an intra-day low R13.42/$, and at 5pm the USD/ZAR was trading at R13.38. The US dollar index broke below 94 index points overnight and on Wednesday it managed to bottom out at 93.402 index points.
Gold bounced on the back of safe-haven buying to peak at an intra-day high of $1 289.61 per ounce. The precious metal lost a bit of its upward momentum to trade at $1 282.40/Oz when the JSE closed.
Other metal commodities were softer with palladium in particular losing the most ground. The metal managed an intra-day high of $992.22/Oz before it slid to trade at $980.85/Oz when the JSE closed.
Platinum managed to score gains towards the close of the JSE to trade in the green. It was trading at $931.60/Oz when the JSE closed.
Brent Crude traded weaker and was priced at $61.48 per barrel when the local bourse closed.
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