The JSE took its lead from weaker Asian and European markets on Friday morning, with local banks faring worst as investors continued to assess the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The week has seen significant volatility in global equities, with stimulus from global central banks supporting the market, even as fears over the disruption to the global economy from the viral outbreak grow.
“At this point no-one can really explain why the markets behave the way they do, and what may be next,” said senior analyst at Swissquote Bank Ipek Ozkardeskaya in a note.
“The only thing we can say is this high volatility is bad, whether it is positive or negative,” she said.
In morning trade on Friday the all share was down 1.58% to 52,100 points, while the top 40 had fallen 1.66%.
Banks were down 2.75% and the industrial index 1.41%.
Gold miners had added 1.56%.
Gold was flat at $1,671.14/oz while platinum had fallen 0.27% to $860.54.
The rand was flat at R15.5923/$, and little changed at R17.5044/€. The local currency had weakened 0.26% to £20.2243.
Locally, balance of trade numbers for February are due later.
The corporate calendar is bare, but chemical’s group Sasol was down 3.96% to R163.02, having been downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service to junk status on Thursday evening.
Sasol has faced significant cost overruns at its Lake Charles project in the US, with corporate governance failures prompting the firing of its co-CEO’s in 2019, when it also twice delayed the release of its financial results.
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