JOHANNESBURG: South African stocks edged lower on Monday for a third consecutive session, led by resource stocks such as Gold Fields and Harmony Gold on the back of disappointing growth data from top commodity consumer China.
The Asian giant cut its 2012 growth target to an eight-year low of 7.5 percent as Beijing looks to wean the economy off its reliance on external demand and foreign capital.
"It's a China story today, all of our resource stocks pulling back on the back of the data coming out of China," said Mitchell Gannaway, a trader at Thebe Securities.
"The 7.5 percent is not what the world has been used to in the last couple of years as despite all the negatives in the global economy, China was one of the more positive aspects."
China is South Africa's largest bilateral trading partner and one of the biggest consumers of its commodities. Africa's largest economy is the world's top producer of platinum and a major supplier of gold, iron ore and coal.
The benchmark blue-chip Top-40 index fell 0.56 percent to 30,236.78 while the broader All-Share index fell 0.45 percent to 34,031.77.
Gold Fields, South Africa's second-biggest producer of bullion, shed 2.8 percent to 112.30 rand and smaller rival Harmony was down 1.7 percent at 91.95 rand.
Diversifed miner BHP Billiton shed 1.6 percent to 239.51 rand, while Kumba Iron Ore a unit of Anglo American and the world's 10th largest producer of iron ore, used in the production of steel, was down 1.5 percent at 571.50 rand.
Johannesburg-traded shares of cigarette company British American Tobacco Plc shed 2.2 percent to 375.88 rand.
Consumer goods firm Tiger Brands led the gainers with a rise of 1.4 percent to 265.99 rand, followed by mobile operator Vodacom, up 1.4 percent to 103.80 rand.
Trade was thin with just 154.3 million shares changing hands, according to preliminary bourse data, down from the daily average of 256 million sold last year.
Advancers equalled decliners at 150. A total of 75 stocks were unchanged.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.