South Africa Market Watch | 17 Aug 2015: Bear continues to rule the South Africa equity markets despite gains by gold miners

Johannesburg, South Africa (Capital Markets in Africa) — The South Africa equity markets carried forward last week negative momentum to open this week in red, with loses across the main sector indices except gold miner.  Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share tumbled by 70.08 or 0.14 percent to close at 50,751.10 points and the JSE Top 40 index sagged by 53.67 points or 0.12 percent to end at 45,287.52 points.

From the sector perspectives, financial sector index dropped 0.29 percent or 128.92 points at 44,758.78 points. Both Industrial sector index and industrial 25 index declined by 0.08 percent to close at 73,430.73 points and 0.07 percent to settle at 65,471.94 points respectively. Likewise, the resource index down by 0.16 percent or 56.80 points to closed at 35,326.39 points but the Gold mining sector index sagged by 1.88 percent with a closing level of 816.74 points.

Looking at the market strength/breath (measured as ratio of gainers to losers), the market recorded 167 price gainers, 167 price losers and 66 remained unchanged, hence market strength/breathe ended neutral.  Among the top gainers was Hospitality Property Fund B, whose shares climbed 15.77 percent to end at ZAR 3.01 after investors exchanged 1,682,552 shares. Fairinvest Property Holdings rose 5.88 percent after traded 117,600 shares, boosting the share price to ZAR 1.80. Compu Clearing Outsourcing Limited also added 5.77 percent to sell at ZAR 5.55 after investors traded 2,600 shares. Argent Industrial Limited rose by 5.73 percent to ZAR 4.80 after exchanged a total of 47,339 shares. Rhodes Food Group Holdings surged by 5.43 percent to end at ZAR 4.80.

On the losers’ league table, was Africapalladium Debs whose shares fell to ZAR 71.33 after 96,472 shares were bought and sold, resulting in a loss in share price of 9.97 percent. Aveng Limited lost 7.08 percent as shares slid to end at ZAR 5.12, after 1,777,069 shares were traded. Rolfes Technology Holdings tumbled by 6.88 percent to conclude at ZAR 3.25 a share after investors bought and sold 75,873 shares. Lonmin Plc also slid by 6.44 percent to ZAR 7.12 after 1,263 deals. After investors bought and sold 3,127,774 shares in 3,259 deals, Telkom SA Limited fell 6.37% to R59.94 a share

On the forex markets front, the South rand was weaker against US dollar at ZAR 12.8797 by depreciating by 0.53 percent and depreciated by 0.13 percent against British pound to trade at ZAR 20.0513. The rand fell by 0.15 percent against the Euro to close at ZAR 14.2636.