Banks, financials lead JSE index higher

index was 0,28 percent higher at 36 221,13 points‚ with banks adding 0,72 percent and financials up 0,7 percent. However, gold miners gave up 1,26 percent.
Ratings agency Moody’s announced yesterday that it had downgraded South Africa’s five biggest banks’ foreign deposit ratings due to the revision of the country’s foreign currency deposit ceiling to Baa1 from A3 previously.
Standard Bank‚ Absa‚ FirstRand Bank‚ Nedbank and Investec Bank Ltd’s foreign-currency deposit rating now stands at Baa1 from the previously held A3 rating.
Rand Merchant Bank said in a morning note that investors faced grim European data releases again on Wednesday as the region’s services industries contracted further in September.
“US data have been better, with strong private sector employment numbers and a solid rise in new orders in the services sector. The market’s main focus will now be on Friday’s official US nonfarm payrolls numbers,” the bank said.
“Today’s highlights are the European Central Bank’s and Bank of England meetings. No moves are expected in either, but watch for market volatility after (ECB president) Mario Draghi’s Press conference.
“The minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s last meeting, to be released this evening, will give a better indication of how much support the third round of quantitative easing has from policy makers,” it said.
“Local factors are negative. Foreigners dumped almost R2 billion of local bonds on Wednesday, taking net inflows post the world government bond index inclusion back to R6,7 billion. Strikes continue to spread.”
Among individual shares‚ Anglo-American was up 0,23 percent at R247,42 and Sasol added more than 1 percent to R371,80.
Standard Bank added 0,99 percent to R105,84 and RMB Holdings advanced 1,25 percent to R38.
Among platinum counters Lonmin gained 2,29 percent to R74,53, while Impala Platinum dropped 0,73 percent to R136,59. — AFP.