Think Daily 24 January 2021

In Friday’s trading session in the local markets, the Top 40 closed the day down by 2.01%. The Resources 10 sector went down by 2.93%, the Financial 15 went down by 0.23%, the Industrial 25 went down by 1.76% and lastly the South African Listed Property index down by 0.53%. The rand traded at R15.07 against the United State Dollar, R20.43 against the Great British pound, and R17.10 against the Euro. The rand on Friday traded below R15.10 towards the end of the day, which was the last traded in November 2021, amid a relatively subdued dollar and expectations that the South African Reserve Bank will raise its repo rate to 4% at its first monetary policy decision of the year on January 27th.



Figure 1: USDZAR cross over 5 days

On the commodities front, the Brent Crude oil is trading at $88.38 a barrel and WTI Crude oil is traded at $85.58 a barrel. Gold Spot price is currently trading at $1837.51, and Platinum Spot is now trading at $1034.70 and lastly, Palladium Spot price is at $2110. On the gold front, Gold prices hovered near 2-month highs around $1,840 an ounce on Monday, underpinned by inflation concerns, softer US bond yields and increased safe-haven demand.
Across the globe, the S&P 500 closed the day down 0.94%, Dow Jones closed down 0.52% and the Nasdaq had a 1.38% down. The FTSE 100 closed down 1.2% the DAX was down 1.94% and CAC40 was down 1.75%. In the Asian markets, the Nikkei 225 is up 0.24% and the Hang Seng is currently down 1.32%. The major averages sold off broadly last week amid mixed earnings and concerns over higher interest rates, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq posting a 7.55% weekly loss.
Companies slated to report earnings this week, include Apple, Microsoft and Tesla.