Unum Market Commentary: JSE Edges Higher; Rand Weakens

On Thursday a weaker South African Rand helped to boost the All Share Index by 0.14% to close the session at 52205. Despite the slight weakness in the local currency, SA-focused shares such as Shoprite, Discovery and Capitec also advanced by over 2.5% while weakness was seen in Anglo American, Mediclinic International and British American Tobacco as the shares declined by 3.20%, 2.27% and 1.69% respectively. In Europe, equity markets were slightly softer as the EuroStoxx50 index declined by 0.02%, weighed down by shares such as Bayer and Daimler. In the US, the Dow Jones, S&P500 and Nasdaq declined by 0.30%, 0.17% and 0.13% respectively.

JSE Major Sectors

Resources 10 -1.12%
Industrial 25 +0.53%
Financial 15 +0.44%

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In currencies, the South African Rand trades as follows:

USDZAR -0.17% to 14.37
GBPZAR -0.21% to 18.42
EURZAR -0.10% to 16.61

Gold trades at $1193
Platinum at $780
Brent Crude Oil at $75.15

International Markets

This morning, Asian equities are as follows:

Nikkei 225 (+0.65%)
Hang Seng (-0.77%)
Shanghai Composite (-0.35%)

Latam Markets closed as follows:

Merval 25 (-1.20%)
Bovespa (-1.65%)
INMEX (-0.23%)
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Company News

Discovery Holdings - Trading Statement

In accordance with paragraph 3.4(b) of the JSE Listings Requirements, issuers must publish a trading statement as soon as they have a reasonable degree of certainty that earnings per share and / or headline earnings per share for the next reporting period will differ by at least 20% from that of the previous corresponding period.

Shareholders are advised that: - Headline earnings per share (undiluted) for the year ended 30 June 2018 (“current period”) is expected to increase in the range of 30% to 35%, to between 888 cents and 922 cents over the prior year ended 30 June 2017 (“prior period”) (2017: 683.1 cents); and - Earnings per share (undiluted) is expected to increase in the range of 25% to 30%, to between 855 cents and 889 cents (2017: 684.2 cents) over the prior period.

It is practice for the Company to issue a trading statement on “normalised” headline earnings per share, which in management’s view best represents the underlying performance of the Group.

Accordingly, shareholders are advised that: - Normalised profit from operations is expected to increase by between 15% and 20% in the current period over the prior period to between R8.1 billion and R8.5 billion (2017: R7.0 billion); and - Normalised headline earnings per share (undiluted) is expected to increase in the range of 13% to 18%, to between 816 cents and 852 cents over the prior period (2017: 722.2 cents).

Discovery’s results for the year are due to be released on SENS on 4 September 2018.

The financial information on which this trading statement is based has not been reviewed and reported on by the Company’s external auditors.
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Aus miners:
BHP Billiton (+0.95%)
Rio Tinto (-0.05%)
S32 (-0.15%)

FANGs
Facebook (-0.43%)
Amazon (-1.10%)
Netflix (-1.53%)
Google (-0.05%)

FTSE Miners:
Anglo American plc (-2.58%)
BHP Billiton plc (+0.61%)
Glencore plc (+0.81%)

Alibaba Holdings (-3.16%)
Tencent Holdings (-1.67%)

Please feel free to contact the Unum trading desk with any trading related queries: 011 384 2929