Archive for April, 2010

SA Mar PPI +3.7% y/y (exp 3.9%) (4)
Johannesburg, Apr 29 (I-Net Bridge) - South Africa’s producer price index (PPI) registered growth of +3.7% year-on-year (y/y) in March from +3.5% y/y in February, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) data on Thursday showed.
The PPI increased 0.2% on a monthly basis after February’s monthly increase… »

What is the point of the credit rating agencies? Greece is only the latest example of how badly they trail events. Only now has Standard & Poor’s recognised the near certainty of some form of default by assigning junk status to Greek government debt. In every significant financial crisis I can recall, they’ve been left… »

Aquarius Plat MarQ net profit triples to US$23.3m
Johannesburg, Apr 29 (I-Net Bridge) - Aquarius Platinum (AQP), the world’s fourth-largest platinum producer, on Thursday recorded a significant financial improvement by posting a net profit of US$23.3 million for the quarter to end March 2010 compared to a net profit of $6.5 million for the same quarter… »

Some warning bells are still ringing, even if only faintly. Greece, one of the smaller countries in the European Union, has asked for a à 45bn aid package from its European partners and the IMF. In the US, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street’s leading investment bank, is being charged with… »

IF A sense of panic has started to grip Europe over the potential for Greece to default on its debts, and the contagion to spread rapidly to the continent’s other struggling economies, it has not yet struck Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. He insisted on Wednesday April 28th that there was… »

Investors are abandoning the euro at a rate not seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. as Europe’s worsening fiscal crisis threatens to splinter the 16-nation currency union.

Pension funds and banks sold euros this month at the fastest pace since the second half of 2008, when the currency tumbled more than 25 percent… »

The price of gold later fell back after speculation that economic growth would erode demand for the precious metal as an alternative asset.

In sterling terms, gold hit a new record of £767.
S&P’s downgrade means certain investors will no longer be allowed to buy Greek debt and could also curb Greece’s access to vital European… »

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Gordon Brown prostrated himself as a “penitent sinner” yesterday after a brush with a voter triggered a calamitous chain of events that threatened to derail Labour on the eve of tonight’s pivotal TV debate.

The Prime Minister spent an unscheduled 45 minutes inside the terraced house of Gillian Duffy apologising to the Labour-supporting widow for insulting… »

— Stats SA releases March PPI.
— ArcelorMittal releases Q1 2010 results.
— MTN releases March quarter subscriber numbers.
— Sappi holds AGM.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
After yesterday’s sharp 2.7% decline, local stocks will be hoping for a reprieve today and they might just get that, after the Dow climbed 53.28 points, or 0.48%, to 11045.27.
Dow Jones… »