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Gold's disastrous slide leaves market fe... |
Gold's disastrous slide leaves market feeling jitteryGOLD's slide to a 14-year low of $296/oz did nothing to help an already soft and jumpy JSE. The implications of a low gold price on the whole economy began to dawn on the market - even on those who scoff at stale bulls of the metal and who never buy gold shares. Job losses mean unpaid accounts and greater demand for credit - no wonder Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals is more cautious than the market would like. His comments squashed hopes of an early rate-cut, which only added to the poor sentiment. The all-share index shed 1.3% to 6 326 on the back of an 8% drift in the gold index to 727 and a 3% drop in the industrial index to 7 711. Financials saved the day to a point - banks were quite strong. Monday's new listing AMB traded all week at around R17 - more than double the price at which the equity was placed. The market also welcomed excellent results from Metropolitan, which added 16% to R12.50. Nail, a shareholder in both these companies, pleased the market by relinquishing the opportunity to invest in Goldco. Nail shed 15c to 485c, but the N shares edged up in big volume. Sector companion Murray & Roberts, whose chief executive resigned a week ago after the group's big losses, shed 18% to 851c, and Housewares nearly halved to 32c after reporting a loss. Fridgemaster lost more than a quarter of its value to 420c, which did not help shareholder NSA in a critical trading period - the average of the trading price from last Thursday to this Wednesday determines the cash underpin offer from Gensec. Choice reported a big loss and became among the spikiest companies ever to be quoted: in 1995 it was 15c, by early last year it was R18.50 and it is now 70c. New listing Wetherly's traded at 170c, 30c below its issue price, but clawed its way back to only 2c short by the close. Recently quoted O'Hagans added 9c to 260c on its investment in Mabaleng Taverns. Southern Mining announced it had bought a 65% interest in a third heavy-minerals prospect near Stoffberg. SMC will provide up to $10-million to fund a bankable feasibility project over the prospect. JCI bought 20% of SMC earlier this week for R250-million; SMC has doubled to R21 in the two months since it listed. M-Net added 25c to 435c; it is to distribute shares in Supersport as a dividend in specie but they will initially trade as a linked unit. Terms of the Otis minority takeout were finally announced after months of cautionaries: shareholders will be offered 600c. It added 116c to 566c. Saflife added 205c to R12 on announcing an unbundling of its holdings, 25 JCI and 30 Captall per 100 Saflife. Molope jumped on enormous volume on a cautionary: it added 7% to 560c. Pat Cornick hit R30 and Rebhold shed only 5c to 995c after cancelling talks. Richemont shed 50c to R53.50 after saying it would pay a 26% premium to the market price to take out the minority in luxury goods group Vendôme.
Julie Walker Top of page
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