Some profit taking

Nico Kelder, economist at the Efficient group wonders when the local bull-run loose steam, and how will the Thursday MPC decision on the interest rates influence the markets?

The currency traded flat against the euro but weakened marginally against the dollar and sterling.

South African bond yields weakened a little yesterday, the R153 higher by 3 points and the R157 by 4 points.

Commodities traded mixed. Oil gained 1.51%, platinum was higher by 0.59% and gold marginally lower by -0.19%. In Europe markets closed mixed – the DAX was flat, the CAC marginally lower by -0.27% and the FTSE shedding -0.29%.

In the US the Dow Jones closed marginally higher 0.27% while the NASDAQ ended 0.46% higher. The US markets were quite on Columbus Day yesterday. Third quarter profit reports from Yahoo, Intel and Merril Lynch are expected today.

The Hang Seng and the Nikkei are currently trading lower by -1.17% and -0.42% respectively. After a solid performance by the JSE the past few weeks we expect local markets to be vulnerable to profit taking during the next while.