Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - Naspers [JSE:NPN], which is by far the biggest share on the JSE, traded on Thursday morning at a new all time high after its Chinese subsidiary, Tencent, also reached a new high on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The weight of Naspers’ market value on the indices, and some good local economic news, helped the JSE to trade higher after the market has been in the doldrums the last few days.
Naspers was by mid-morning on Thursday another 2.09% higher trading at a new all time high of R3 737.99. The share hardly moved over the previous seven days, but is still 16.74% higher over the past thirty days.
Naspers’s gains helped to push the industrial index 0.91% higher by mid-morning, helping the All-share index to gain 0.68% to 59 589 points in morning trade. The Top 40-index was at that stage 0.78% higher at 53 420 points. The resources index also gained 0.63%, but the financial index was only 0.21% higher
Naspers’s share price is mainly driven by Tencent, in which the local company owns a stake of 34.4%. This stake is worth more than Naspers’s market value and represents the major part of its market value and income.
Tencent responded on Thursday to a recovery on Asian markets and traded 2.61% higher at a new high of R393.20. Asian shares rallied on Thursday, in contrast with other global markets, on upbeat economic data in the US which added to expectations that the Federal Reserve would not only hike in December, which is now almost fully priced in, but multiple times next year as well.
There was also upbeat news on the South African economy in the form of strong retail sales, which created hope that the South African economy might have done better in the third quarter than it was originally expected. The helped the mood on the JSE.
South African retail sales rose by 5.4% year-on-year in September, after increasing by a revised 5.4% in August, data from the statistics office showed on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 4.5% year-on-year increase in retail sales in September.
Sales also expanded 4.1% in the three months to September compared with the same period last year, Statistics South Africa said.
Most of the major retail sales were higher, although the gains were modest. Shoprite [JSE:SHP] gained 0.71% to R208.48 and Mr Price [JSE:MRP] was 0.58% higher at R190.80. Massmart [JSE:MSM] was another 0.64% higher at R103.75 after strong gains on Wednesday.
The Foschini Group [JSE:TFG] was one of the star performers gaining 11.7% to R135.32 and Truworths [JSE:TRU] traded 0.44% stronger at R68.60. Woolworth was, however, lower and lost 1.25% to R54.39.
The international retail group Steinhoff [JSE:SHF] also rallied and gained 1.59% to R53.00 after it lost 15.72% over the previous seven days. Steinhoff Retail Africa, which includes all of Steinhoff’s African interests, was, however, 0.13% softer at R23.72.
Amongst the top industrial shares British American Tobacco [JSE:BTI] was unchanged at R927.00, but Richemont [JSE:CFR] lost 0.36% to R123.87.
Sanlam [JSE:SLM] was one of the busiest shares in the financial sector and traded 1.44% at R72.44 just below its 52 week high of R72.88. FirstRand, which was the busiest share in morning trade on the JSE, gained 0.49% to R52.83. The share moved only 0.13% over the previous seven days and 0.32% over the past month.
Anglo American [JSE:AGL] traded 1.34% higher at R272.60 in the resources sector but BHP [JSE:BIL] was only 0.395 higher at R258.00
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE UPDATE: Get Fin24's top morning business news and opinions in your inbox.
Read Fin24's top stories trending on Twitter: Fin24’s top stories
