From Fin24
Cape Town – A computer glitch at the JSE has caused the bourse to hugely misrepresent foreign sellers of SA equities as net buyers of R98.10bn worth of local stocks from May to July 20.
Instead of foreigners investing a net R98.10bn in their South African portfolios in May, June and until July 20, the JSE said on Sunday foreigners were net sellers of an accumulative R36.4bn of SA equities in May and June and buyers of just R0.05bn in July to date.
The bourse blamed a programming error affecting the manner in which it extracts data from its core transactional systems for the incorrect calculation.
The statement read: “The correct non-resident statistics for the period are: May 2016 (net sales of R16.1bn); June 2016 (net sales of R20.3bn); July 2016 to date (net purchases of R0.05bn). This compares to the previously published non-resident statistics of the same period: May 2016 (net purchases of R6.4bn); June 2016 (net purchases of R63.8bn); July 2016 to date (net purchases of R27.9bn).”
JSE has totally miscalculated foreign purchases of SA equities for May-July! Instead of massive net purchases, big net sales. Oops…
— Stephen Gunnion (@stephengunnion) July 24, 2016
The JSE said it took immediate steps to correct the statistics and is considering additional measures to avoid a re-occurrence.
“The programming error was corrected on 21 July 2016 and daily reports received from 22 July 2016 are accurate as is the source data.
“We recognise the importance of this data to all stakeholders and apologise for the miscalculation,” said Leanne Parsons, Director Information Services at the JSE. – Fin24
Source: http://www.fin24.com/Markets/Equities/jses-r98bn-blunder-20160725
