The JSE all-share index is trading 0.67% higher in morning trade.
Gains are following stronger index performances out of the U.S. and Asia. A worse than expected jobs report out of the U.S. on Friday has fuelled speculation that rates may remain on hold for an extended period of time and has buoyed equity markets for the time being.
The resource index has added 0.93%, the industrial index 0.98% and the financial index 0.5%.
In company news, Discovery has announced the results of its recent rights issue, which consisted of an offer of 55,555,556 new Discovery shares at an issue price of R90.00 per rights issue share.
The rights issue was significantly oversubscribed as excess rights issue shares applied for will be allocated in a manner viewed as equitable in terms of the JSE listings requirements. Taking cognisance of the number of shares held by the shareholder, including those taken up because of the rights issue, and the number of excess rights issue shares applied for by such shareholder.
Harmony Gold has advised that an employee was fatally injured in an engineering related accident, while performing maintenance work at Unisel mine near Welkom on Saturday, 4 April 2015. Production at the mine has been stopped and an investigation into the accident is underway.
In currencies the Rand is trading at R11.86 to the Dollar, R17.62 to the British Pound and R12.87 to the Euro. In commodities, Gold is trading at $1,208/oz., Platinum at $1,165/oz. and Brent Crude at $57.51/barrel.
On the economic front, services PMI data out of Spain, Italy and the U.K. were all ahead of expectation with index readings of 57.3, 51.6 and 58.9 respectively (est. 56.5, 51.1 and 57.1).
