Think Daily: Tuesday’s trading session

In Tuesday’s trading session in the local markets, the Top 40 closed the day down by 0.12%. The Resources 10 sector went down by 1.24%, the Financial 15 went up by 0.21%, the Industrial 25 went up by 0.61% and lastly the South African Listed Property index down by 0.3%.

The Rand traded at R15.03 against the United States Dollar, R20.39 against the Great British Pound , and R17.42 against the Euro . In yesterday’s trading session, the share price for Telkom (JO: TKGJ ) and Northam (JO: NHMJ ) Platinum plunged by north of 10%. A 12.14% drop in the share price for Telkom signals that investors were not happy with the results reported yesterday. As for Northam Platinum  (JO: NPHJ ), the share price tumbled by 15.43% after Royal Bafokeng Platinum (JO: RBPCBe ) had announced that they are no longer going to go through with the Impala Platinum (JO: IMPJ ) buy out and choosing to go with Northam platinum for a 33% stake deal.

This morning, Vodacom has announced that the company would like to acquire a 30% stake in a new entity, InfraCo, made up of assets including Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa. Vodacom has also agreed to buy a majority stake in Vodafone (LON: VOD ) Egypt from its U.K. parent for $2.7 billion. And lastly, Transaction Capital (JO: TCPJ ) and Life Healthcare Group (JO: LHCJ ) released a trading statement for the companies' full-year results.

Figure 1: Northam Platinum's one week chart



On the commodities front, the Brent Crude oil is trading at $85.20 a barrel and WTI Crude oil is traded at $84.28 a barrel. Gold Spot price is currently trading at $1825.17; Platinum Spot is now trading at $1057.51 and lastly, Palladium Spot price is at $2039.97. As for the oil price surged after preliminary data showed an unexpected decline in US crude stocks last week coupled with a rebound in fuel demand amid easing travel curbs. This is despite warnings from the US government that it will use all available tools to fight higher prices.

Across the globe, yesterday, the S&P 500 closed the day down 0.42%, Dow Jones closed down 0.49% and the Nasdaq had a 0.56% dip. The FTSE 100 closed up 0.36% and the DAX was up 0.04% and CAC40 was up 0.06%. Whereas for the Asian markets, the Nikkei is currently down 0.61% and the Hang Seng is currently up 0.63%. U.S markets, the S&P 500 dropped for the first time in nine sessions and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) Inc.'s lost $199 billion in value amid a range of negative headlines. 

Elsewhere, the October producer price index came in line with forecasts but showed continued input price increases. Bitcoin and Ethereum reached new record highs on Tuesday as global inflation fears and U.S. CPI numbers will be announced today at 15:30 local time. Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS ) is also expected to release the company’s financial results