Joahnnesburg - The explosion at a rock concert in Manchester dampened sentiment on global markets on Tuesday, and the JSE was no exception.
At mid-morning major JSE indices were only marginally higher, but this was enough to move the All-share index and the Industrial index to new 52-week intraday highs.
The All-share index was at that stage only 0.21% higher at 54 633 points, 116 up on the previous 52-week high of 54 517 points. The index however still has a long way to go to reach the all-time high of 55 188 points reached in April 2015.
The Top 40 index gained 0.25% to 48 125 points, still 315 points lower than the 52-week high of 48 488 points.
Over the past few weeks the market has been driven by the Industrial index, which before Tuesday traded more than 6% higher over the past 90 days as investors seek to lessen their exposure to the South African economy by investing in dual-listed shares with global interests.
The Industrial index gained only 0.05% in morning trade on Tuesday due to global risk aversion, but this was still enough to set a new 52-week intraday high of 82 879 points.
The rand also lost some ground and traded at R13.30 to the dollar as the suspected terrorist attack in the United Kingdom spurred investor flight to safe-haven currencies amid broad risk aversion globally.
British police said 22 people, including several children, were killed in a suicide attack carried out by one man after an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on Monday.
The weaker rand however has had little influence on share prices and even the Resources index, which benefits from a softer rand as mines get more for their dollar-priced commodities in rand, traded only 0.05% higher at mid-morning. The Gold index was 1.04% up.
The Financial index, which still hasn't made up losses suffered after President Jacob Zuma’s latest Cabinet reshuffle, showed some life and at mid-morning was 0.78% higher.
FirstRand [JSE: FSR] was one of the busiest shares with more than 3.3 million shares traded by mid-morning. The stock rose 0.67% to R49.92. Sanlam ]JSE:SLM] made up most of the losses of the previous week and traded 1.95% higher at R70.49.
Among the top shares Naspers [JSE:NPN] traded 0.45% higher on yet another all-time high of R2 808.50. Steinhoff [JSE:SHF] gained 0.73% to R73.23 but Richemont [JSE:CFR] lost 0.55% to R110.43.
MTN [JSE:MTN], which on Monday said it is negotiating with Naspers about acquiring television content, was only 0.22% stronger at R120.26. Vodacom [JSE:VOD], which gained more than 7% over the past week, traded 0.19% higher at R164.06.
Sibanye [JSE:SGL] was by far the busiest stock on the JSE and more than 5 million shares were sold, but the share price gained only 0.14% to R28.54. The share lost more than 14% over the past month as investors are unhappy about the 60% discount offered for new shares being issued to raise capital for the acquisition of the Stillwater platinum mine in the United States.
BHP [JSE:BIL] was 0.69% softer at R207.20 and Anglo American [JSE:AGL] was 0.50% softer at R185.57.