S. Africa's JSE closes firmer as rand slides

JOHANNESBURG, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) closed higher on Wednesday, shrugging off the rand's recent slide against the dollar.

Local data and corporate news were largely positive, but global factors were in the limelight, notably the U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The local unit weakened to R12.6597 to the U.S. dollar in overnight trade.

News that U.S. President Donald Trump's import duties on steel and aluminium may threaten about 7,500 local jobs was not supportive of market confidence, with local aluminium producer Hulamin tumbling more than 4 percent.

Trump signed a proclamation granting tariff duty exemptions to several countries, but South Africa was not among them.

The all share gained 0.34 percent to 58,450.44 points and the top 40 0.26 percent.

Gold miners rose 4.54 percent, platinums 3.89 percent and resources 1.31 percent. The property index fell 0.92 percent and food and drug retailers 0.51 percent.

Kumba Iron Ore jumped 6.29 percent to R285.42 and African Rainbow Minerals 5.57 percent to R108.09.

Rand hedge Richemont gained 1.76 percent to R120.97.

Gold Field leapt 5.8 percent to R49.59 and Anglogold Ashanti 4.38 percent to R117.27.

Sibanye-Stillwater rose 3.83 percent to R11.4, ahead of a quarterly operations report expected on Thursday. The company said earlier it was still interested in acquiring embattled platinum miner Lonmin.

PSG gave up 1.16 percent to R222.39, after earlier announcing that founder and group chairman Jannie Mouton was facing health problems.

Naspers fell 1.53 percent to R3,012.74.

Platinum had firmed 0.6 percent to 898.83 dollars an ounce and gold 0.25 percent to 1,307.06 dollars.

The top 40 Alsi futures index gained 0.26 percent to 51,96 points. Enditem