South Africa Market Watch | 1 July 2015: South African equity all share index closes 0.16% higher as industrial shares led gains, gold miners lost 2.41%.

Johannesburg, South Africa (Capital Markets in Africa) — South African equity markets on Wednesday ended on a upward momentum. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share closed 0.16 percent or 81.09 points higher to close at 51,888.04 points. Likewise, the JSE Top 40 index added 0.37 percent or 171.77 points to end at 46,313 points and JSE Financial sector index surged by 0.05 percent at 43,643.48 points. Both Industrial sector index and industrial 25 index grew by 0.52 percent and 0,66 percent respectively. Gold miners index and Resource sector index however lost 2.41 percent and dipped 1.29 percent in that order.

Looking at the market strength and breath, the market recorded 147 upward movers and 186 downward movers as well as 65 stayers, hence market strength ends in negative.  On the top ten biggest gainers list today was Eqstra Holdings, whose shares rose 9.43% to sell at ZAR 2.90 after investors bought and sold 9,327,070 shares in 847 deals. Tower Property Fund added 6.08% after 23 deals traded 250,927 shares, pushing the share price up to ZAR 9.60.

Northam Platinum (NHM) fell to R37.85 after investors exchanged 2,528,349 shares in 2,130 deals, resulting in a loss of 5.99% in the share price. After 3,867 deals totalling 2,476,625 shares, Murray And Roberts Holdings (MUR) slid 5.16% to ZAR51.50 a share.

On the foreign exchange market, the South African Rand depreciated against US dollar, British Pound and EURO by 0.90 percent, 0.14 percent and 0.14 percent respectively to end at ZAR 12.27, ZAR 19.11 and 13.57 in that order. However, the Rand gained against New Zealand Dollar by 0.54 percent to end at ZAR 8.28 and Aussie Dollar by 0.21 percent to settle at ZAR 9.39.