News in Brief

Private jobs report lifts Wall Street stocks

US stocks advanced yesterday, extending a record high for the Dow Jones industrial average, after a private jobs report showed companies took on more workers than estimated last month. The Dow rose 0.4 percent to 14 305.88 at 10.12am in New York. “We’re still bullish on the US,” said Tom Elliott, a global markets strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. The Dow rose to a record on Tuesday, erasing losses from the financial crisis, as the bull market enters its fifth year. The benchmark index has surged 128 percent from a 12-year low in 2009 as firms reported better-than-estimated earnings and the US Federal Reserve embarked on three rounds of bond purchases to stimulate the economy. – Bloomberg

Chinese buy assets of Aurora mine

China African Precious Metals (CAPM) had bought assets of liquidated Aurora’s gold mine in Orkney in the North West, the firm said yesterday. CAPM said it had reached an agreement with provisional liquidators of the mine and successfully met their requirements, including the full payment of the acquisition price. – Sapa

Minimum wage to hit small farmers

The high cost of energy and the new farmworker minimum wage had caused many farmers to reconsider their future, the African Farmers Association of SA (Afasa) said yesterday. “We have been inundated with calls from smallholder farmers who want to quit farming due to rocketing costs of doing business,” Afasa secretary general Aggrey Mahanjana said. – Sapa