South Africa Market Watch | 12 Aug 2015: Johannesburg Stock Exchange ends in red, with loses across the main sectors except gold mining sector

 Johannesburg, South Africa (Capital Markets in Africa) — On Wednesday the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) closed in red district, with loses across the main sector indices except gold mining sector index.  Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share plunged by 1,650.57 or 3.16 percent to close at 50,570.60 points and the JSE Top 40 index plummeted by 1,642.23 points or 3.52 percent to end at 44,980.35 points.

On the same trend, financial sector index sagged by 3.42 percent or 1,588.84 points at 44,918.54 points. Both Industrial sector index and industrial 25 index declined by 3.62 percent to close at 72,825.12  points and 3.62 percent to settle at 64,825.38 points respectively. Likewise, the resource index down by 0.29 percent or 103.42 points at 35,531.69 points but the Gold mining sector index surged by 10.92 percent with a closing level of 869.19 points.

Looking at the market strength/breath (measured as ratio of gainers to losers), the market recorded 95 price gainers, 270 price losers and 46 remained unchanged, hence market strength/breathe ended negative.  Amongst the top gainers on Wednesday was Gold Fields, after 1,996 deals totalling 1,883,172 shares rose 11.83 percent to sell at ZAR 37.71 a share. Anglogold Ashanti soared by 11.78 percent to close at ZAR 86.75 after 2,322,571 shares were exchanged in 4,652 deals. Also on the gainers was York Timber Holdings Limited, whose shares advanced 11.36 percent to sell at ZAR 2.45 after investors traded 136,562 shares. Sibanye Gold Limited also rose; climbing 8.98 percent to ZAR 15.66 after exchanged a total of 2,980,463shares. Tharisa Plc surged by 7.27 percent to end at ZAR 5.90.

On the losers’ league table, Glencore Xstrata tumbled by 6.09 percent to conclude at ZAR 35.75 a share, taking its place on the top ten biggest losers list today after investors bought and sold 6,245,981 shares in 2,763 deals. Sanlam Limited plunged by 5.76 percent after investors traded 7,259,313 shares in 6,648 deals, sending the share price sliding to ZAR 64.03. Mediclinic International Limited sagged by 29.81 percent to end at ZAR 10.88 after exchanging 1,607,419 shares, Eastern Platinum Limited shed off 16.60 percent to end at ZAR 11.00 and Alaris Holdings Limited somersaulted by 6.70 percent to close at ZAR 2.09

On the Forex markets front, the South rand was stronger against US dollar at ZAR 12.7518 by appreciating by 0.16 percent but depreciated by 0.02 percent against British pound to trade at ZAR 19.8906. The rand fell by 0.87 percent against the Euro to close at ZAR 14.2399.