Heavyweight miners take steam out of rally

South African stocks ended slightly lower on Friday, snapping a four-day winning streak, dragged down partly by Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), which issued a profit warning.

Amplats flagged a fall in annual profit of as much as a 55% as it counted the costs of last year's five-month strike and lower platinum prices. The world's biggest platinum miner's share price fell 3.9% to R367.79.

"I am interested to see in the results the further action taken with regard to the unprofitable mines to reflect the reality of lower platinum prices," said Sasha Naryshkine, a fund manager at Vestact. "We still continue to avoid single-commodity stocks. The prospects still look patchy at best."

Sharp falls in other bourse heavyweights, such as Anglo American and BHP Billiton, also weighed on the index.

The JSE Top 40 index eased 0.18% to 43647 points and the All Share index 0.11% to 49816.

Kumba Iron Ore was down 1.9% at R224.32 after it warned that annual profit had likely fallen as much as 31%.

On the flipside, generic drug maker Aspen Pharmacare climbed 2.6% to R434.19 after saying that it had bought a drug that prevented blood clotting for $142.3-million.

The European Central Bank's plan to pump out about à 1-trillion to revive the eurozone economy kept stocks in the region on track for their best week since 2011, but knocked the shared currency to fresh 11-year lows.

Wall Street, which rallied 1.5% on Thursday's European bond-buying announcement, was off because of soft corporate earnings. US Treasury debt prices jumped as European yields touched record lows, rendering higher US interest rates still more attractive to investors.

Oil prices rose on hopes for a boost to global growth from the ECB's move. The death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah added to uncertainty over the plans of the world's biggest crude exporter.

Led by Greek shares, stocks in Europe were set for their biggest weekly gain in more than three years. The ECB's bond-buying scheme helped Greece's ATG share index rise more than 6%.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 1.4% at 1473.94 points after touching a new seven-year high. Germany's DAX and Paris's CAC 40 were ahead by more than 1% at 6pm SA time. The Dow Jones industrial average eased 0.5% to 17725.74, the S&P 500 0.48% to 2053.25 and the Nasdaq Composite 0.25% to 4738.61.

The euro crashed within hours through $1.13, $1.12 and all the way to $1.1115 in its biggest daily slump in three years. It later recovered somewhat, and was off nearly 1% at $1.1267.

Brent crude rose to a high of $49.80, up $1.28 a barrel, before easing to about $49.20.