The first trading week of 2015 delivered no surprises, with all stock markets around the globe closed last Thursday to celebrate New Year’s day. In addition, most stock exchanges opted for shorter trading sessions on another day or two during the week. Volumes on the JSE were low with shares not really showing any clear direction. Investors and fund managers will most likely only get into the swing of things during the next week, or maybe only the week thereafter. It looks as if extra hard work will be needed this year to achieve good returns on the market. Commodity shares seem to be bombed out after decreases of up to 50% last year, but still without any indications of recovery. Lower demand for metals and minerals not only lowered prices, but also sales volumes. Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] already said this week that earnings would be some 20% lower in its financial year to end-2014, while gold mines and other commodity producers have already published quite bad results for the third quarter of last year. The rands decline to a low of R11.70 per dollar early last week will do little to bail out our mining sector: commodity prices feel hard and costs are set to increase even further in the coming year with expected strikes and high wage demands, while electricity is also set to add to costs due to tariff hikes and power disruptions.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 06:40:25 +0000
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