Industrials keep JSE afloat as miners lag

The JSE maintained a positive bias on Wednesday‚ led by industrial stocks while miners lagged despite a slight pickup in metal prices.

The all share was up 0.73% at 51‚130.10 points in early afternoon trade‚ with the blue-chip top 40 adding 0.78%.

The industrial sector rose 1.07%‚ powered by heavily weighted stocks such as British African Tobacco following its well-received interim results.

The resource complex was a tad weaker despite some stabilisation in select commodity prices after the recent sell-off while financial shares were slightly higher.

Europe’s major markets were higher at midday‚ with the UK’s FTSE 100 gaining 0.57% while US stock futures pointed to a stronger session on Wall Street in the afternoon.

“Modest improvements in commodity prices created a slightly more upbeat tone on global markets but the lack of decisive revenue improvement for US corporations continues to be an element weighing on the market for the moment‚” according to Imara SP Reid analysts.

Among some individual shares‚ British American Tobacco was up 2.92% at R716.10‚ with Richemont picking up 2.85% to R107.91 and Naspers gaining 1.7% to R1‚768.99.

ArcelorMittal SA was up 3.38% to R14.39 while Lonmin shed 3.96% to R10.91.

Barclays Africa shed 2.72% to R181.81 after reporting first-half diluted headline earnings per share were up 11% to R7.97.

Discovery was up 1.39% to R135.38.

- BDlive