JOHANNESBURG - The JSE closed yesterday’s session in the black trapping trade war trepidations and marked the second consecutive day the local bourse closed a trading session in positive territory.
The broader all share index strengthened 1.17percent to 56747 points, while the blue chip Top40 index closed the session 1.31percent stronger at 50036 points.
The gains were broad based with resources stocks adding 2.55percent, financials up 0.73percent and industrials gaining 0.83percent.
However, gold mining stocks bled 1.91percent.
Some of the major movers saw Steinhoff’s share price shedding 15.49percent to R2.51, Group Five down 15.74percent to R4.71 and Randgold plunged 16.67percent to close at R1.50.
Brainworks, a Zimbabwean company, saw its share price soar 284.62percent to R25 and Brimstone Investment’s stock was 27.18percent stronger at R13.99.
Technology stocks also continued to rally, tracking their global counterparts. EOH Holdings closed the day 7.2percent weaker to R44.49, while the PBT Group lost 6.67percent to R0.14 and Datatec was 1.37percent weaker at R19.46.
Richard Turnill, the global chief investment strategist at BlackRock, said the recent weakness in tech stocks reflected rising risks but is not a tech wreck in the making.
“Trade tensions between the US and China centre on key issues for the tech sector: intellectual property, technology transfers, market access and investment restrictions,” Turnill said.
“A series of unrelated, high-profile scandals from data breaches to self-driving car accidents has raised the specter of more stringent regulatory scrutiny.”
The rand also made modest gains yesterday.
At 5pm, the local unit bid at R12.05 against the dollar, compared to R12.09 on Monday.
The local currency also made some gains against the pound and was at R17.08 against R17.09, while it strengthened to R14.88 against the euro from R14.89.
Andre Botha, a dealer at TreasuryOne, said: “In the short term, we see he rand sliding a little against the major currencies with the R12.15 against the dollar being a key resistance level. Should the rand break that level and also sustain it, we could see the rand heading to R12.40.”