THE JSE all share further retreated in the red at midday on Friday as resources, platinum and gold shares slumped in reaction to lower iron ore prices.
The benchmark iron ore price fell to a two-year low of $87 per ton on Thursday. It is down 36% so far this year after trading at about $140 per ton in January.
Overall sentiment also turned negative on higher than expected credit extension data released in the morning, pointing to a possible further interest rate hike next month. Total credit extension in July rose to 9.35% year on year from 8.55% in June.
At 12.21pm the all share was 0.53% down at 50,864.59 points and the blue-chip top 40 lost 0.59%. Platinums were 1.23% lower, with gold losing 0.46%. Resources softened 0.44%. Industrials were down 0.58%, mainly on Naspers losing value for the second consecutive day, with financials losing 0.41%. Banks were down 0.37%.
Vestact director Sasha Naryshkine said the lower iron price was hitting the market hard. "It is also getting tougher and tougher for platinums, with high stockpiling levels not moving commodity prices."
The credit extension data was not helping credit sensitive stocks, with retailers down and banks mixed. "Further hikes will not be positive for retailers, but not necessarily for banks which are not that expensive," he said.
Iron ore producers all traded lower, led by Arcelor Mittal losing 1.25% to R39.50. Kumba Iron Ore was down 0.30% to R318.43.
Among hard-hit industrials, Bidvest retreated 1.63% to R284.08 with Imperial off 1.13% to R191.14.
Diversified pharmaceutical group Aspen was 0.69% higher at R299.91 after saying on Friday full-year normalised diluted headline earnings per share would be between 25% and 31% higher than the previous comparable period‚ helped by the sale of certain noncore products and foreign exchange gains.
Resources giant Glencore Xstrata softened 0.25% to R63.69.
Global gold producer AngloGold Ashanti was down 0.90% to R178.66.
Among retailers Massmart was 0.55% down at R131.16 with Shoprite retreating 0.66% to R147.03. Woolies traded 0.29% off at R78.83.
Naspers was down 1.43% to R1,355.34.
Source: BD Live
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