Packaging company Nampak's lenders have agreed to extend a deadline to reduce its debt burden by R1 billion to 1 April 2023.
London stocks won 0.9 percent, with rising crude prices supporting the share prices of energy firms BP and Shell.Tokyo and Shanghai also advanced but Hong Kong nudged lower. The dollar traded mixed."A sliver of optimism has broken through on global markets at the start of the week," said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG, said investors were also watching what US President Joe Biden does as some of the punishing tariffs imposed under Donald Trump start to expire on July 6. "President Biden hopes that a rollback of restrictions might give a lifeline to both economies, as well as repair some of the diplomatic fallout from China's pro-Russian stance over the Ukraine war," he added.
After the S&P 500's worst January-June since 1970, Wall Street got the second half off to a healthy start Friday as a below-forecast reading on US manufacturing provided hope banks will not go on an extended period of monetary tightening.However, National Australia Bank's Rodrigo Catril said the Federal Reserve and other global financial chiefs might not ease back on their rate hikes too soon as inflation remains elevated.
The country saw more than 700 new infections Saturday and Sunday, having held below 50 a day for the previous two weeks. York Timbers has appointed Gerald Stoltz as its new CEO, a position that has been vacant since then CEO Pieter van Zyl’s death in July last year. Wall Street stocks fell on Thursday, a fitting end to a bruising first half of 2022, finishing solidly lower after US data showed persistently high inflation pinching consumer spending.
A series of bad inflation readings have prompted the Federal Reserve to undertake increasingly aggressive measures to try to rein in growth and pricing pressures. But when inflation is taken into account, the data show a decline in real consumer spending, analysts said. Societe Generale SA, Credit Agricole CIB and HSBC Holdings recommended short-dollar positions versus the rand last week, citing supportive factors such as the central bank’s hawkish stance, relatively low inflation and an expected recovery in China’s economy that would boost demand for South Africa’s raw-material exports.
The JSE All Share was down 1.43% on Thursday afternoon. The rand was down over 1% to the dollar on the day after breaching R16 on Tuesday. "Recession continues to be the primary concern at the moment... as countries continue to grapple with spiralling inflation and cost-of-living crises," said Mihir Kapadia, head of Sun Global Investments.
Fed boss Jerome Powell, speaking at a European Central Bank conference Wednesday, hinted again that such hikes could lead to economic contraction."The bigger mistake to make... would be to fail to restore price stability," he insisted. As for foot count, that number remained largely flat - from 8.3% to 8.6% - although trading density rose to 14.2% from 4.4%.
The JSE said in a trading statement that the expected jump is to due strong revenue growth, cost management and higher net finance income. York gave the employees who went on strike in April over job grading, an ultimatum to return to work. The bank had announced the retirement of André du Plessis, Capitec’s co-founder, as CFO and financial director in January.
The hefty selling came after more than a week of gains across the world caused by hopes that any signs of contraction could give central banks room to ease up on their pace of monetary tightening. The news overshadowed a surprise move by China to slash the quarantine period for incoming travellers, raising hopes for further relaxations that can allow the country's giant economy to recover more quickly.
"I wouldn't be surprised, and it's actually in my forecast, that growth will slip below two percent, but it won't actually pivot down into negative territory for a long period of time."But analysts were more sceptical, with Sim Moh Siong at Bank of Singapore saying"low US consumer expectations suggest weaker growth in as well as growing risk of recession by year end".