The JSE was weaker on Wednesday morning, along with its global peers, as concern about the risks of slowing economic recovery weighed on sentiment.
The release of disappointing fixed investment, industrial production and retail sales data from China rattled investors.
“Government officials tried to put a brave face on the data, blaming flooding and lockdowns in August. With regards to the retail sales data though, one can’t divorce a slump in consumer confidence from the ongoing shared prosperity multi-sector government crackdowns, where job losses are an inevitability,” said Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.
“The poor Chinese data set today has confirmed the risk-aversion mood and markets are mostly lower today. That is probably a warning side that the downside is the path of least resistance for the remainder of the week,” said Halley
At 10am, the JSE all share had lost 0.47% to 63,998.65 points and the top 40 0.55%. Precious metals had fallen 1.53%, retailers 0.84%, industrials 0.74%, banks 0.52%, resources 0.33% and financials 0.15%.
At the same time, the FTSE 100 had lost 0.28%, France’s CAC 40 0.24% and Germany’s DAX 0.13%.
Earlier, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.17%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.92% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 0.52%.
At 10.10am, the rand had weakened 0.11% to R14.3104/$, 0.29% to R16.9119/€ and 0.38% to R19.7935/£. The euro was 0.11% firmer at $1.1817.
Gold lost 0.17% to $1,800.99/oz and platinum 0.94% to $933.61. Brent crude added 0.32% to $74.16 a barrel.
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