{"id":418333,"date":"2020-07-21T10:20:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T08:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=418333"},"modified":"2020-07-21T10:21:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T08:21:13","slug":"south-african-stocks-set-to-erase-2020-losses-on-naspers-and-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/418333\/south-african-stocks-set-to-erase-2020-losses-on-naspers-and-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"South African stocks set to erase 2020 losses on Naspers and gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s benchmark equities index is set to erase its 2020 drop, staging a spectacular snap-back from its March trough following a surge in shares of market heavyweight Naspers Ltd and a stellar performance by gold miners.<\/p>\n

The FTSE\/JSE Africa All Share Index gained as much as 2% on Tuesday, and has climbed more than 50% from its March 19 low to be 0.6% higher for the year on an intraday basis.<\/p>\n

South African stocks have outpaced developing-nation peers, with the MSCI Emerging-Markets Index still down 3% for 2020, while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index remains down by about 9%.<\/p>\n

Naspers has contributed most to the rebound, with the tech investor up 44% this year as the Covid-19 lockdown increased demand for online services provided by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, in which the Cape Town-based company holds a 31% stake.<\/p>\n

The gains in the South African benchmark have little to do with confidence in the local economy and more with a wave of stimulus from major global central banks that has spurred investor demand for riskier assets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s Treasury forecasts that gross domestic product will contract 7.2% in 2020, the most in almost nine decades, due to the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions put in place to curb its spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enormous rally has been fueled by hopes of a vaccine, but primarily by global central banks stepping up, providing almost unbelievable stimulus packages and reassuring markets that they are here to provide liquidity,\u201d said Henre Herselman, a derivatives trader at Anchor Private Clients.<\/p>\n

An index of South African gold producers has more than doubled this year as bullion closes in on its all-time high set in 2011. Investors have piled into the haven asset at a time of deeply negative real interest rates and geopolitical risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recovery in the South African market has largely been driven by heavyweight industrial and resources shares,\u201d Herselman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe search globally for yield, as global interest rates are at record lows has filtered into the bond market, but not the South Africa-focused shares broadly speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Economists divided over rate decision this week<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s benchmark equities index is set to erase its 2020 drop, staging a spectacular snap-back from its March trough following a surge in shares of market heavyweight Naspers Ltd. and a stellar performance by gold miners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":382095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[15109,26,107],"class_list":["post-418333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-anchor-private-clients","tag-headline","tag-naspers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418333"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418355,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418333\/revisions\/418355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}