Miners, banks drag JSE to January lows

The JSE retreated to its weakest intraday level since late January on Tuesday‚ dragged lower mostly by banks and platinum miners.

The all share was off 0.58% to 51‚081.60 in early afternoon trade‚ bringing losses to about 3% since Monday when the Greek debt crisis reached its boiling point.

Platinum shares shed 1.49% as the platinum price weakened towards multi-year lows of $1‚000 per ounce. Banks‚ which recently put up a strong recovery‚ gave up 1.49%.

Momentum Asset Management economist Sanisha Packirisamy said financial market volatility was likely to be the order of the day in the near term in the absence of a deal to resolve the Greek debt crisis.

"During such a ‘risk-off’ phase‚ perceived safe-haven currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen are likely to strengthen‚ with resultant negative implications for commodity prices and emerging market financial assets‚" Packirisamy said.

European stock markets were calmer following Monday’s volatility‚ with France’s CAC 40 losing 0.51% at midday‚ while US stock futures pointed to a positive session on Wall Street this afternoon.

Among some individual shares‚ BHP Billiton was off 1.37% to R233.96 but Gold Fields regained 2.61% to R40.17‚ despite the weaker gold price.

British American Tobacco was off 1.07% to R669.82‚ with Richemont losing 1.01% to R98.04.

Standard Bank gave up 2.01% to R156.29‚ with Capitec losing 4.08% to R442.19.

- BDlive