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Johannesburg — The JSE closed in the green as it was buoyed by retailers and financials which bounced on the back of the firmer rand.

The rand peaked to intra-day highs of R13.14 against the greenback which set the tone for rand sensitive stocks. Truworths, Woolworths and Mr Price all bounced to close the day up 1.95 percent, 0.87 percent and 0.91 percent respectively.

Gold Fields managed to close up 1.75 percent and it was one of the top movers in the JSE Top-40 Index, however AngloGold Ashanti came under significant pressure after the release of their results earlier this morning.

AngloGold Ashanti’s results indicated an adjusted headline loss of $93m, as well as a free cash outflow of $161m for the 6 months ended 30 June 2017. The share closed 2.59 percent lower at R131.18 per share.

BHP Billiton closed 1.08 percent firmer as it followed the trend in the primary Australian listing which closed up 1.22percent. MTN retraced slightly today as it took a  break from the upward trend that was recorded for the better part of last week.

The stock closed down 0.87 percent, at R125.00 per share. Harmony Gold also gave up some gains from last week as the stock ended the day down 0.68 percent.

Sasol released a relatively good set of results which indicated descent increases in sales volumes as well as a strong operational performance.

Headline earnings per share were down by 15 percent, however the firm recorded an increase in earnings per share of 54percent. Core headline earnings were up by 6 percent.

The stock price did bounce but it failed to break above R400 and eventually closed at R392.80, up 0.57 percent for the day. Notably, the Lake Charles project is 74 percent complete and the capital expenditure to date is $7.5 billion. Shareholders should expect lower profit margins in the medium term as costs are expected to increase.

The JSE Top-40 index closed the day up 0.26 percent, while the JSE All-Share index inched up 0.20 percent.

The Industrial index firmed 0.11 percent, while the Financials index was 0.13 percent firmer. The Resources index jumped 0.76 percent as it was pushed higher by firmer commodity prices

On the commodities front, metals continued on their bullish trend from last week. Gold tracked higher by more than $7 from its open but failed to gain enough momentum to test  $1 300 per ounce.

The precious metal reached an intra-day high of $1 293.85/oz, and just after the JSE closed it was recorded at $1 292.44/oz.

Palladium continued to trade above $900 per ounce, reaching levels last recorded in 2001.

The metal reached an intra-day high of $937.29/oz which aided palladium miners Sibanye Gold and Impala Platinum as they closed up 0.36percent and 1.03percent respectively. Platinum followed a similar trend to reach an intra-day high of $986.45/oz. It was trading at $983.85/oz when the JSE closed.

Brent Crude opened significantly higher today compared to the close on Friday, as it opened at $53.00 per barrel. The commodity failed to maintain this momentum as it did not test that level again during the course of the day. The commodity was trading at $51.90 per barrel just after the JSE closed. — Fin24