JSE closes lower on consolidation

Independent Newspapers

The JSE. Photo: Simphiwe Mbokazi.

The JSE share market closed softer on Monday on the back of some profit taking after global rallies last week‚ which pushed the JSE to a fresh all-time high on Friday‚ after a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) was announced by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) on Thursday.

At 5pm local time‚ the JSE all-share index was down 0.51% to 36‚362.58 points‚ with most indices in the red‚ expect for platinum‚ which gained 2.16% with banks adding 0.18%.

“The JSE was lower on Monday due to consolidation in the market after a few strong days. Across platinum shares‚ Aquarius and Lonmin stood out on the upside‚ on the back of some progress made with regards to wage talks‚” said Satish Gosai‚ head of trading at Kagiso Asset Management in Cape Town.

“After being weak for the past few trading sessions‚ the banking sector was trading marginally higher today. This was supported by a strong gain in the Standard Bank share price” he said.

Meanwhile US stocks edged lower‚ brought down by materials shares‚ as investors weighed disappointing New York manufacturing data and the eurozone’s continued hurdles in addressing debt problems‚ Dow Jones Newswires reported.

At 4.48pm local time the Dow Jones Industrial Average had declined 23 points‚ or 0.17%‚ to 13‚5569.94 points in midmorning trade‚ putting the index on pace to snap a four-session streak of gains that took it to its highest close since December 2007 on Friday. Stocks rallied last week after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced an open-ended bond-buying programme meant to spur the economy.

Among individual stocks that showed gains were platinum miner Lonmin (LON) up 6.06% at R86.97. The miner announced on Monday that‚ as a result of the ongoing illegal strike at its Marikana operations‚ it now expected sales for the full year ending September 30 to be in the range of between 685‚000 and 700‚000 saleable ounces of platinum. This is lower than the 721‚000 platinum ounces sold in the 2011 financial year.

Anglo American Platinum (AMS) gained 1.95% to R450.63‚ Aquarius (AQP) added almost 8% to close at R7.05 and Impala Platinum (IMP) added 1.91% to R146.24.

Among banking counters Abil (ABL) added 3.31% to R34.05 and Standard Bank (SBK) gained 1.51% to R103.95.

In industrials Bidvest (BVT) gave up 3.06% to R203.10 and Richemont (CFR) was off 2.47% to R54.

Among retailers‚ Truworths (TRU) gained 3.77% to R93.65. - I-Net Bridge