The South African index opened stronger at first, but lost some ground during morning trade.
The all-share index is trading 0.09% weaker. Resources are down 1.7% and industrials are up over a half of a percent.
Looking at company news, BHP Billiton and Shoprite Holdings reported full-year results this morning. Billiton showed full-year underlying net profit up by 10% and declared a dividend of $0.62 per share.
The news that pushed the share price down with more than 4% was that a separate listing will be created from their non-core assets, which includes manganese and aluminium.
Shoprite’s results were met unfavourably by investors, as it showed slow headline earnings growth. Trading margin also decreased to 5.6% from a previous 5.8%.
The rand is trading mixed against the majors this morning, R10.63 to the dollar, R14.18 to the euro and R17.70 to the British pound. In commodities gold is trading at $1,300 per ounce, platinum at $1,445 per ounce and brent crude oil is at $101.75 per barrel.
British CPI figures came in below expectation at 1.6% on an annual basis. We are also keeping an eye out for US CPI figures out at 14:30 SA time this afternoon.
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