{"id":6747,"date":"2012-01-06T01:18:57","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T23:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/s-african-stocks-close-down-for-first-time-in-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-01-06T01:18:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T23:18:57","slug":"s-african-stocks-close-down-for-first-time-in-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-african-stocks-close-down-for-first-time-in-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"S.African stocks close down for first time in 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Top-40 slips 1 percent<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Gold miners down as bullion prices fall<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Jan 5 (Reuters) &#8211; South African stocks<br \/>\nclosed lower on Thursday for the first time in four days, with<br \/>\nthe Top-40 index falling more than 1 percent, dragged<br \/>\ndown by blue-chip telecoms firm MTN and gold miners.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN, Africa&#8217;s biggest mobile operator, plunged 5.4 percent<br \/>\nto 132.06 rand, extending losses to 8 percent this year, amid<br \/>\nfears that U.S. and European sanctions will hit the economy of<br \/>\nIran, one of its key non-African markets.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>An announcement that it would spend $1 billion in 2012 in<br \/>\nNigeria, its biggest market, and the licensing of a rival<br \/>\noperator in Cameroon also dampened sentiment towards the stock,<br \/>\nsaid Bruno van Eck, a trader at Thebe Stockbroking.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is one of the biggest stocks on the market, so it is<br \/>\nobviously pushing the market into negative territory,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Valued at $32.5 billion, MTN is the fourth-largest company<br \/>\non the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bourse&#8217;s benchmark index edged 1.05 percent lower to<br \/>\n29,058.39, while the broader All-share index fell 0.91<br \/>\npercent to 32,599.06.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Spot gold&#8217;s fall from a high of $1,625.36 to as low as<br \/>\n$1,596.24 on the day also made miners such as Harmony<br \/>\nand Gold Fields less desirable.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Top-40 slips 1 percent * Gold miners down as bullion prices fall JOHANNESBURG Jan 5 (Reuters) &#8211; South African stocks closed lower on Thursday for the first time in four days, with the Top-40 index falling more than 1 percent, dragged down by blue-chip telecoms firm MTN and gold miners. MTN, Africa&#8217;s biggest mobile [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-6747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}