South Africa Market Watch | June 23rd 2015: South African equities up as Greece hopes improve sentiment

Johannesburg, South Africa (Capital Markets in Africa) — The South African equities rally maintained on Tuesday, amid of investor hopes on Greek debt crisis.

With resource shares leading the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) upwards, the All Share index ended 0.77% higher on Tuesday with gains across the board. Equally, the Top 40 index which was 0.91% stronger on Monday added another 0.74% on Tuesday to trade at 46 934 points.

The financial sector, which gained about 2% on Monday, continued upwards on Tuesday morning and at midday was another 1.34% higher. This week’s upward momentum is the first real improvement since the last week in April.

On the performance front, Naspers, gained another 1.25% to ZAR 1 920.49. Also, SABMiller continued its improvements of Monday and traded another 0.15% higher at ZAR 650.49, while Sasol added 0.90% to end at ZAR 432.00.  While the Banking shares were particularly strong and First Rand  and Standard Bank, the two most widely traded shares in the sector, again made strong gains. FirstRand was 1.97% stronger at ZAR 53.33 and Standard Bank gained 1.66% to trade at ZAR 159.61. Capitec, surged by 1.61% to conclude at ZAR 485.72.

Furthermore, Old Mutual was the busiest share in the insurance sector in terms of value and traded 0.95% higher at ZAR 40.38. MMI Holdings added 2.91% to ZAR 30.02.

After 638 deals totalling 1,543,464 shares, Aveng slipped 5.56% to sell at ZAR 5.95 a share. Murray And Roberts Holdings was also amongst the top movers downwards today, sliding 5.89% to close at ZAR 13.10 after investors traded 3,223,994 shares in 753 deals.