What happened?

Last night while I was sipping my bourbon I wondered what happened in the market today because I didn’t have time to look - Gerbrand Smit, analyst at the Efficient Group.

This morning I saw that the JSE Securities Exchange (-0.58%) closed in the red. My favourites, BHP Billiton (+2.13%) and mining group, Aflease (+8.06%) strutted their stuff on the boardwalk.

On my way home last night from that “quick” drink, I had to stop at the ATM to draw some money for petrol. Luckily I didn’t realize that the amount of money I drew was worth less than the day before.

The rand lost ground against the euro (-0.30%) and pound (-0.54%), while the dollar reached a five year low against the yen. At the garage I filled Daisy (my car) with unleaded and surprisingly the price of oil (+0.16%) was steady as production levels had declined.

Looking at my gold (+0.24%) watch that was roundabout 2am. Those workaholic Americans had Martin Luther King Day and their equity markets were closed yesterday. European equity markets looked good with an average boost of 0.52%.

Currently Asian markets are exhausted with the Hang Seng (0.41%) lagging behind. Luckily for the markets there are no cricket today, thus the market should show some stability to the downside today.