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JOHANNESBURG. — Foreign investors’ sales of South African stocks jumped to a record as emerging-market index changes by compiler MSCI Inc prompted money managers to adjust their holdings.
Net outflows surged to R13,3bn ($894m) of South African shares Tuesday, compared with net purchases of R389m in the previous session, figures from stock exchange operator JSE Ltd show. MSCI added 26 China shares, 30 equities from Saudi Arabia and eight Argentine securities to its emerging-market stock benchmarks, at the expense of South African stocks in changes that took effect Tuesday.
Net sales of Naspers Ltd were the largest Tuesday, at R4,9bn. Nedbank Group Ltd, Hyprop Investments Ltd, Bidvest Ltd and FirstRand were also in the top five, the JSE figures show.
“South Africa’s weighting went from 6,34 percent to 6,05 percent in the MSCI emerging market index,” said Matete Thulare, an analyst at FirstRand Bank in Johannesburg. MSCI is the world’s biggest index compiler and its emerging-markets index is the most important for the asset class, with as much as $1,8trn in assets benchmarked to it as of June 2018. South Africa’s main stock index was 0,5 percent higher as at 11:03am in Johannesburg yesterday. — Bloomberg.
Online Reporter