JOHANNESBURG: South African stocks snapped a five-day winning streak on Tuesday, dragged down by e-commerce firm Naspers, which slid after the head of its Chinese money-spinner Tencent sold a large stake in the firm. Naspers, the most expensive African company, fell 5.6 percent, after scaling record levels on Monday and tracking Tencent's decline in China.
Tencent slumped after the chief executive reduced his holdings in China's biggest social networking and online entertainment firm.
But analysts said Naspers' shares could rebound as the fundamentals of the firm were sound.
"Nothing has changed from a fundamental perspective on that company at all. We'll see some buying support coming back in again," said Ferdi Heyneke, a portfolio manager at Afrifocus Securities.
After hitting all-time highs in the previous session, the benchmark Top-40 index was down 0.57 percent to 47,039 and the broader All-share index dipped 0.52 percent to 53,311.
Iron ore producer Assore rose 6.7 percent and Kumba Iron Ore added 2 percent after the price of the steel-making ingredient jumped after some Chinese mills resumed production.
Trade was highly active, with 237 million shares changing hands compared to Monday's trading of 181 million shares.
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