Following on from yesterday’s release of the CPIX statistics coming in at 10.4%, the producer price inflation (PPI) figures were released today and they rose by 12.4% year-on-year in April from 11.9% year-on-year in March. With the rising CPIX and PPI it is almost certain that the central bank will increase interest rates come June 12. With this in mind, banking stocks took a knock on the JSE today fuelled by the likelihood of an aggressive interest rate hike. The all share index lost 0.98%. Banks were the hardest hit in todays trading with Investec loosing 4.40% to close at R52.10 and FirstRand shedding 2.57% to close at R14.41.

The miners also had a bad today largely due to the falling metals prices. AngloGold Ashanti shed 5.84% to close at R274 whilst Anglo Platinum lost 2.55% to close at R1 340. But on the up side was telecoms giant, MTN who had been taking a battering over the last couple of weeks due to the uncertainty of their future. Today the MTN share rose 6% to close at R151, this off the back of rumours that MTN may be on the verge of completing a deal with Reliance Communications from India.

On the rand front; at 16:00 the local currency was bid at R7.6175/$ from a previous close of R7.6670. It was bid at R11.8378/€ from a previous R12.0040 and at R15.0491/€ from R15.1616 before.

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