Unum Market Commentary: Global Equities Mixed As Traders Assess

On Friday, the South African equity market continued to soften following the sharp sell-off seen on Thursday. For the session, the All Share Index closed lower by 0.23% while the Top 40 index shed 0.35%. These declines were led by South 32 (-4.17%), AB Inbev (-2.60%) and Naspers (2.51%). On the upside, Bidvest, Bidcorp and Woolworths saw strong buying activity which saw these shares gain 4.16%, 3.69% and 3.28% respectively. On the currency front, the Rand traded near it's year-to-date lows, closing the trading week at R14.68 versus the US Dollar. In commodities, Brent Crude Oil continued it's move higher, closing near it's one-month high of $78.03, while Copper continued to trade near it's year-to-date lows, finishing the trading week at $2.64. This morning, Asian markets are on the back foot with the Nikkei 225, Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite lower by 0.57%, 0.93% and 0.94% respectively.

JSE Major Sectors

Resources 10 -0.25%
Industrial 25 -0.77%
Financial 15 +0.76%

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Join the Unum Trading Desk on Friday 7 Sep 2018 starting at 14:15 as we look to trade the EURUSD Forex pair on the NFP data. t.me/NFP7SEP2018


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In currencies, the South African Rand trades as follows:

USDZAR +0.49% to 14.75
GBPZAR +0.26% to 19.07
EURZAR +0.49% to 17.12

Gold trades at $1204
Platinum at $786
Brent Crude Oil at $77.40

International Markets

This morning, Asian equities are as follows:

Nikkei 225 (-0.57%)
Hang Seng (-0.93%)
Shanghai Composite (-0.94%)

Latam Markets closed as follows:

Merval 25 (+9.49%)
Bovespa (+0.36%)
INMEX (-0.16%)
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Company News

Old Mutual Limited - Unaudited Condensed Group Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2018

- Results from operations (RFO) of R4,848 million, up 7% (HY 2017: R4,530 million
- Adjusted headline earnings (AHE) of R5,393 million, marginally up on prior year (HY 2017: R5,359 million
- AHE per share of 112.3 cents per share, in line with prior year
- IFRS profit after tax attributable to equity holders of the parent of R10,648 million up 42% (HY 2017: R7,503 million) mainly due to the accounting effects of the sale and distribution of Quilter shares
- Declaring first interim dividend of 45 cents per share, representing 40% of AHE, in line with our dividend policy
- Declaring special dividend of 100 cents per share
- Funds under management (FUM) up 2% to R1.097 billion - Net client cash flow (NCCF) of R9.4 billion, an increase of R7.8 billion (HY 2017: R1.6 billion)
- RoNAV of 17.5%, down from 19.4% reflecting lower investment returns.
- Group solvency ratio of 164%, reflecting capital resilience of the Group
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Aus miners:
BHP Billiton (-0.51%)
Rio Tinto (-1.20%)
S32 (-0.57%)

FANGs
Facebook (-1.08%)
Amazon (+0.52%)
Netflix (-0.89%)
Google (-1.80%)

FTSE Miners:
Anglo American plc (-2.15%)
BHP Billiton plc (-1.34%)
Glencore plc (-2.90%)

Alibaba Holdings (+0.23%)
Tencent Holdings (-3.06%)

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The Unum Capital Trading Desk