Off the wire
• Rosy outlook for British gardening as growing season becomes longer  • China remains as first export destination of French Bordeaux wines in value in 2015  • Security forces repel suicide car bomb attacks in Iraq's Anbar  • Three Dutch missing after Brussels attacks  • BFA starts first-ever sports sub-forum  • Kenyan tightens security in tourist resort ahead of Easter  • Greece rues lack of progress on EU-Turkey deal, as tensions rise at FYROM border  • Syrian gov't delegation to respond to UN paper in next round of Syrian talks  • Party, government leaders to be punished for inaction in maintaining public security  • Sino-UK sandbox exercise on evacuation of nationals held in China  
You are here: 　 Home

JSE ends lower in thin trade

Xinhua, March 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Johannesburg securities Exchange (JSE) closed weaker on Wednesday, in what dealers described as "quiet trading" ahead of the Easter weekend.

At 04:40 local time (04:40 GMT), the all-share index was down 1.54 percent to 52,569.55 and the blue-chip top 40 index had lost 1.49 percent, with losses across the board led by a 4.01% drop in resource shares and 4.50% fall in gold miners.

All the main indices were in negative territory, with gold and platinum miners leading the downside, losing 4.09 percent and 8.64% respectively after recent solid gains.

Among individual shares on the JSE, Sasol was down 1.9% at R468.21 as oil prices declined.

Gold miner AngloGold Ashanti gave up 4.93 percent to R201.36 and Sibanye slumped 7.06% to R54.10.

Impala Platinum lost 6.15% to R45.50 as commodity prices slumped.

Financial index down 1.94 percent, banks index slipped 3.46 percent with FirstRand fared worst in the banking sector, losing 4.11 percent to R45.98, while Nedbank was down 1.18% to R187.79.

Builder Basil Read added 4.29 percent to R3.65, while Group Five was down 0.36 percent to R22.19.

Weaker construction activity in the first quarter of this year saw tendering competition intensify, weighing on confidence, and the industry expects continued moderation this year and in 2017 on lower public sector spending and persistently weak growth in private sector capital expenditure,the FNB/BER Civil Confidence Index released on Wednesday showed.

Demand in the construction sector is one of the crucial indicators of economic growth as companies and the government tend to invest more on building and roads when the economy grows and less when it falls. Endit