The JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) only opened at mid-afternoon today after a network problem forced the exchange not to function properly. The JSE have said that they are embarrassed by this forced delay as it has cost brokers a lot of money and in turn also cost the JSE money. The JSE has had a pretty impressive track record over the last couple of years of having very minimal down time. Such technical and networks areas are expected all the time but contingencies have to be put in place so that an errors have a back up. In todays situation, there clearly was not a suitable back up plan and thus trading on the JSE started much later than normal. Read the rest of this entry »

The local stock exchange is in a state of panic. Yesterday, stocks were down 3.11% resulting in a total weekly loss of 7%. Many economists are not really surprised with the events taking place on the JSE with some saying that it is “normal” for the market to have a correction after shares have “run for so hard so long”. Another contributing factor to the slump of the JSE may be attributed to the strengthening of the rand as local investors look to sell off their shares and opt for trading in the currencies market. The rand had strengthened by more than one percent to a one-month high against the dollar on Thursday, adding to Wednesday’s sharp gains. Read the rest of this entry »

The JSE (Johannesburg Securities Exchange) closed the day in a very good position. Infact, most stock exchanges across the world are in positive territory today this on the back of the US interest rates cut. 

The JSE all share index closed 3.62% higher, as resources rallied 6.01%. The platinum mining index climbed 4.89%, and the gold mining index added 3.08%. Industrials gained 1.42%, financials rose 2.4% and banks collected 1.4%.

Let’s see how the markets trade for the rest of the week. Could be a very interesting week with lots of money being made by investors.