In Wednesday’s trading session in the local markets, the Top 40 closed the day up by 0.48%. The Resource 10 sector went up by 1.97%, the Financial 15 went down by 0.21%, the Industrial 25 went down by 0.3% and lastly the South African Listed Property index) up by 0.43%. The Rand traded at R15.37 against the United States Dollar, R20.69 against the Great British Pound, and R17.70 against the Euro.
In yesterday’s trading session, gold stocks had a strong run after U.S. CPI numbers were released at 15:30 local time as the gold. The morning Gold Fields (JO:GFIJ) and Harmony Gold reported an operational update for the quarter. This afternoon, the manufacturing production numbers for September will be released at 13:00. The Foschini Group (JO:TFGJ) reported the company's half-year results with the group's revenue up by 47.1% and the gross profit up by 64.8%. MediClinic (JO:MEIJ) and Sappi (JO:SAPJ) reported the results this morning.
On the commodities front, the Brent Crude oil is trading at $82.52 a barrel and WTI Crude oil is traded at $81.29 a barrel. Gold Spot price is currently trading at $1852.54; Platinum Spot is now trading at $1079.28 and lastly, Palladium Spot price is at $2039.75. As for the oil price dropped after US crude stocks increased by 1 million barrels last week, partly due to a 3.1-million-barrel release. The gold price surged higher as it is widely viewed by investors as an inflation hedge.
Across the globe, yesterday, the S&P 500 closed the day down 0.35%, Dow Jones closed down 0.28% and the Nasdaq had a 0.71% dip. The FTSE 100 closed up 0.91% and the DAX was up 0.17% and CAC40 was up 0.03%. Whereas for the Asian markets, the Nikkei is currently up 0.59% and the Hang Seng is currently up 0.54%.
U.S markets pulled back after CPI numbers were released, which came out at the highest level in 30 years. Fresh CPI data showed inflation jumped more than expected to 6.2% in October, marking the highest reading since 1990 and raising concerns that price pressures may weigh on the economy far longer than expected. Disney (NYSE:DIS), Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) and Bumble (NASDAQ:BMBL) reported disappointing quarterly earnings, while Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM), Honest Company (NASDAQ:HNST) and Sofi printed better-than-expected revenues. Elsewhere, Elon Musk unloaded $5 billion of stock in Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Bitcoin reached new all-time highs.