A lighter shade of red…
After a subdued start for the week the JSE Securities Exchange (-0.40%) closed marginally in the red yesterday.
Gerbrand Smit, analyst at the Efficient Group says that mining stock which is mostly currency-related dragged the bourse down, while banks (+0.61%) and retailers (+0.16%) tried their best for a positive close on the exchange.
Construction group Aveng (+3.15%) and platinum group AngloPlat (-2.19%) were the good and the bad in the market, while Ispat Iscor (-3.13%) was just ugly. The rand pulled back earlier losses, and gained between 8- and 14 cents against the major currencies.
On the commodity market gold (+0.14%) remained steady, while oil (-0.77%) was just a tad cheaper. US equity markets were cheery, and in the black by 0.30% across the board.
In Europe the FTSE 100 (-0.28%) was the main loser, with the CAC 40 in France trading flat.
Currently the Hang Seng (-0.32%) is going downhill as brokers are concerned that the market is overvalued. Trading in Japan will resume today as it was closed for a national holiday yesterday.
We expect the volume on the local market to be more upbeat as fund managers had time to consider their current positions and might try to sell underperforming shares.
