Amid a global market sell-off, the JSE came under pressure on Thursday, falling to its lowest level since early July.Woolworths gained ground after the company hiked its dividend on Wednesday. Aspen and Old Mutual also gained ground after reporting results.
Meanwhile, another top Fed official signalled the bank was determined to keep lifting borrowing costs, mirroring comments by head Jerome Powell last week that there would be no let-up in the fight against inflation. The hawkish remarks out of the Fed have dealt a hefty blow to a rally in markets from their June lows.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul, Mumbai, Bangkok and Taipei were all deep in the red, though Singapore, Wellington, Manila and Jakarta eked out small gains. "But an actual intervention is likely to be ineffective at this point where the dollar is rising broadly on US monetary policy prospects while there is no support for the yen from the Bank of Japan."
This month, both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are expected to raise borrowing costs aggressively. Data overnight showed euro zone inflation had risen to another record high last month, solidifying the case for a 75 basis point rate hike from the ECB next week. "August has been a terrible month for balance fund investors with no diversification gains from holding a portfolio of equities and bonds," Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank, said in a note to clients.
Markets are awaiting U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday and they may not like a strong number if it supports the basis for a continuation of aggressive rate hikes, which could further boost the U.S. dollar. Impala Platinum has acquired another 0.47% of the Royal Bafokeng Platinum shares in issue, bringing its total shareholding to 38.86%.
Its South African business saw a 38% to 43% increase in normalised operating profit. This is despite Discovery Insure's profit falling by more than 160% due to the impact of claims for the KwaZulu-Natal floods - as well as"considerable" hikes in the cost of repairing vehicles. Normalised profit from operations at Discovery Health increased by between 3% and 8%, while Discovery Life's profit was up 198% to 203%.
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