Telcos pumping…

The local bourse (+0.34%) was driven by MTN (+2.20%) and Telkom (+3.13%) yesterday with the gold (+1.77%) and resources (+0.85%) indices performing well.

Gerbrand Smit, analyst at the Efficient Group says the rand traded steady against the dollar yesterday, but has lost 11 cents against the pound during the week so far.

Gold (0.02%) has reached its highest level this year, while oil continued its record breaking run even though US inventories were higher than anticipated.

US equity markets took a massive blow, as the rising commodity prices sparked inflation fears, closing 0.86% down on average for the day. On the European front the FTSE 100 (-0.30%) lagged behind the falling DAX (-0.48%) and CAC 40 (-0.46%).

Currently the Asian equity markets are sliding downhill, the Hang Seng (-1.03%) leading the way. The manufacturing data being released later this morning by StatsSA will give some direction to the equity market later on.