South Africa Market Watch | 23 July 2015: South African equities end on upward momentum, JSE All share gains 50 basis points

Johannesburg, South Africa (Capital Markets in Africa) — Today the South African equities ended on upward momentum. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share increased by 259.46 or 0.50 percent to close at 52,237.02 points. The JSE Top 40 index rose by 0.60 percent or 278.26 points to end at 46,649.23 points.

The financial sector index surged by 0.74 percent or 335.08 points at 45,580.96 points. Both Industrial sector index and industrial 25 index climbed by 0.74 percent to close at 76,048.65 points and 0.72 percent to settle at 66,883.73 points respectively. However, the resource sector index fell by 0.87 percent with a closing level of 35,793.72 points and the JSE Gold index tumbled 1.02 percent or 8.76 points at 854.07 points.

Looking at the market strength/breath, the market recorded 188 price gainers and 137 price losers as well as 74 remained unchanged, hence market strength/breathe ended positive. Amongst the gainers today on the JSE was  Aveng Limited which rose 7.33 percent to trade at ZAR 0.70 per share as 1,902,907 shares were bought in 822 deals. Vodacom Group Limited gained 4.57 percent to trade at ZAR 14.30 per shares after 13016 deals bought 7,454,004 shares.  Seardel Investment Corporation gained 8.57 percent to ZAR 1.14 after 22,000 traded shares and Trematon Capital Investment Limited closed at ZAR 3.50 after gaining 7.69 percent.

Significant losers today were Impala Platinum Holdings Limited which slipped 3.18 percent to trade at ZAR 4.78 per share after 2,326,591 shares were sold in 3195 deals. Similarly Glencore Xstrata PLc dropped 4.16 percent to trade at ZAR 4.28 per share following 2396 deals which sold 5,963,274 shares. Likewise, Sephaku Cement South Africa plunged 4.82 percent to trade at ZAR 7.51 per share following sold 45,870 shares

On the currency markets front, the South rand depreciated against US dollar at ZAR 12.4302 by plummeting by 0.29 percent and by 0.94 percent against Euro to trade at ZAR 13.6793. The rand appreciated by 0.47 percent against the British pound to end at ZAR 19.2412.