South Africa’s main stocks benchmark was broadly neutral on Thursday, poised to finish the year with a gain of more than 4%, recovering from a drop of as much as 33% during the pandemic-fueled sell-off in March.
The FTSE/JSE Africa All-Share Index was down 0.4% as of 9:54 a.m. in Johannesburg, with 16 of 41 sector sub-indexes lower.
Large-cap miners BHP Group Plc and Anglo American Plc weighed on the gauge the most, falling 1% and 0.7% respectively as iron ore futures head toward a back-to-back weekly loss.
Nevertheless, miners are set to become the third-best performing sector in 2020, behind industrial metals and oil producers. Industrial engineering, travel & leisure and chemicals stocks declined the most.
Thursday’s shortened trading session ends at noon local time, and markets will be closed on Friday.
Precious metal miners rose the most by index weight on Thursday, with Northam Platinum Ltd. +1.2%, Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. +0.7%, Gold Fields Ltd. +0.8%, Anglo American Platinum Ltd. +0.7%, with spot Platinum down 0.4% and spot gold broadly neutral.
Index heavyweight Naspers Ltd. declined 0.2%, still on track to finish the year with a gain of more than 30%
The rand remained flat at R14.6133 against the dollar