The JSE was weaker on Thursday morning, along with global markets as investors considered data releases this week focused on the US jobs market.
Private payrolls data issued on Wednesday showed that employers added 103,000 positions in November, coming in below expectations.
The data came after the US labour department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (Jolts) on Tuesday showed vacancies fell below market estimates to the lowest level since March 2021.
Investors are looking to see if the next data sets will follow a similar cooling trend and support the view that the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates and will potentially start cutting interest rates early in 2024.
Weekly jobless claims numbers are due later on Thursday, followed by the key data on nonfarm payrolls (NFP), wages and the unemployment rate on Friday.
“Data so far this week has pointed to further weakness in the jobs market and additional disinflationary pressures,” said Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam. “There’s no getting around the fact that the data at the end of the week — US jobs report — is the one everyone is eagerly waiting for but the releases in the interim both fill the void and help to build the case that the economy is a little softer and price pressures are subsiding.”
“Disinflationary pressures building in the economy will further enable the Fed to adopt a far less hawkish approach next week [at the December monetary policy meeting],” added Erlam.
At 10.30am, the JSE all share had lost 0.33% to 75,151.76 points and the top 40 was down 0.34%. Precious metals had gained 0.27%. Banks had lost 1.29%, financials 1.16%, food producers 0.34%, retailers 0.3%, resources 0.23% and industrial metals 0.21%.
In Europe, France’s CAC 40 was down 0.16% and Germany’s DAX 0.23%.
Earlier in Asia, the Shanghai Composite index was little changed, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.73% and Japan’s Nikkei 1.76%.
At 10.09am, the rand was little changed at R18.9589/$ and R20.4123/€, while it had weakened 0.15% to R23.8469/£. The euro was little changed at $1.0775.
Gold gained 0.34% to $2,031.85/oz and platinum 1.09% to $897.22/oz. Brent crude was 0.75% firmer at $74.78 a barrel.
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