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Johannesburg - Global equities started the week on the back foot as China retaliated to the USA’s tariffs.
China has threatened to impose tariffs on US oil products and as a result, Brent crude has been retracing from its recent highs. On the New York Stock Exchange, oil producers ExxonMobil and Chevron closed weaker on Friday.
There is broad-based weakness across global equity markets including the JSE, as investors try to gauge the impact of the tariffs.
The US dollar is marginally softer from its recent highs; however, it is still significantly strong compared to where it opened last week.
Investors continued to sell off South African bonds, which saw the 10-year benchmark Treasury yields rise as high as 9.080% in today’s session.
As a result, the rand continued to trade under pressure to reach a session low of R13.69/$. At 17:00 it was trading at R13.67/$.
On the JSE, Grindrod [JSE:GND] came under pressure to end the day 6.8% weaker at R9.18 per share.
Liberty Holdings [JSE:LBH] lost 4.03% to end the day at R119.00 per share, following the news of a data breach on their database.
Raubex [JSE:RBX] released a trading statement which indicated that they expecting significant decreases in earnings for the six months ending August 31, 2018. The stock closed at R21.75 per share after dropping 4.98%.
Retailer the Foschini Group [JSE:TFG] lost 3.91% to close at R181.39 per share, while Mr Price [JSE:MRP] was 5.06% weaker to close at R230.52 per share.
Redefine Properties [JSE:RDF] closed at R10.43 per share after shedding 2.71%, while Discovery [JSE:DSY] was 1.82% softer at R141.08 per share.
Gains were relatively modest, especially amongst the blue-chip counters.
AngloGold Ashanti [JSE:ANG] added 1.57% to close at R111.00 per share, while its sector peer Harmony Gold [JSE:HAR] posted gains of 5.15% to end the day at R20.82 per share.
Anglo American Plc [JSE:AGL] firmed by 1.17% to close at R310.86 per share, while Sappi [JSE:SAP] closed at R94.30 per share after inching up 0.58%.
Platinum miner Royal Bafokeng Platinum [JSE:RBP] was 1.12% firmer to end the day at R22.50 per share, and Lonmin [JSE:LON] added 1.54% to close at R7.92 per share.
Rhodes Food Group [JSE:RFG] and Ascendis Health [JSE:ASC] jumped by 1.04% and 2.59% respectively.
The JSE All-Share Index closed 0.73% weaker and the blue-chip JSE Top-40 index lost 0.63%.
The Resources index was the only major index to end the day in the green after adding 0.34%. The Financials and Industrials indices lost 2.23% and 0.59% respectively.
Gold lost significant ground on Friday as the US dollar extended its gains.
In today’s session it slipped to a session low of $1 277.94 per ounce but trading was less volatile compared to Friday’s session. At 17:00 the precious metal was trading at $1 278.61/oz.
Platinum eased by 0.43% to trade at $884.38/oz, and palladium was only 0.21% firmer at $993.14/oz.
Brent crude traded weaker initially because of the current trade jitters. However, it recovered to trade 1.59% firmer at $74.61 per barrel, just after the JSE close.
Ethereum traded relatively flat and at 17:00 CAT it was trading at $497.50 per coin, down 0.35% for the day.
Bitcoin was 0.47% softer at $6 455.00/coin.
* The JSE market update is from GT247.com, an online broker and authorised financial services provider.
