S. Africa's JSE closes lower in choppy trading

JOHANNESBURG, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) tracked lower on Thursday in a session that was characterized by significant volatility.

These left the all share lower 0.06 percent to 58,926.01 points, and the top 40 gained 0.1 percent. The top 25 industrial companies gained 0.32 percent, boosted in part by corporate earnings and a weaker South African rand.

The local bourse's other indices performed poorly, on the back of profit-taking, global bearish sentiment in equities due to renewed fears surrounding U.S.-proposed steel and aluminium tariffs.

The platinum price was off 0.45 percent to 947.31 U.S. dollars an ounce, having dropped nearly 2 percent a day earlier.

On the JSE, MTN Group added 10.12 percent to R135 after the mobile operator reported profit in the year to December. Vodacom surged 1.84 percent to R166. Media and internet group Naspers was up 1.78 percent to R3,539.92.

Aspen was up 1.83 percent to R261.7 after reporting a 26-percent rise in first-half normalized headline earnings per share (HEPS) to R8.72. Mediclinic was up 3.75 percent to R98.2.

Resilient added 9 percent to R68.31 following announcement of its intention to restructure its controversial broad-based black economic empowerment entity.

Spar Group slipped 4.04 percent to R212.79 and Shoperite 2.31 percent to R269.14.

Platinum producer Lonmin slipped 7.41 percent to R11 and Northam Platinum 2.95 percent to R41.1.

FirstRand lost 3.38 percent to R69.51.

The South African rand weakened against major currencies. The local currency weakened to a session low of R11.9 to the U.S. dollar. Enditem