By TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG – TRADING on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for the full 2016 year outstripped 2015’s strong growth, with increases across most markets.
Value traded on the Equities Market rose by 17 percent to a value of R5,9 trillion in 2016 with number of trades up by 15 percent.
Almost a third of trades of the overall market now execute in the JSE’s colocation facility.
Value traded on the Equities Derivatives Market rose by 4 percent in 2016 as compared to 2015, to R6.9 trillion.
The JSE recorded 18 new company listings in 2016; ten on the Main Board; seven on the alternative board and one on the Empowerment Segment.
Donna Nemer, Capital Markets Director at the JSE, says, last year, volatility in South African markets was driven mostly by factors outside of our borders.
Nemer mentioned these to include Brexit (Britain exit from European Union) to the election of United States president Donald Trump.
This is a shift from 2015 where much of the volatility was prompted by events at home, ending with the departure from office of then-Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.
“The global political uncertainty and volatility of 2016 boosted the JSE’s market activity overall, with a 17 per cent rise in value traded on the Equity Market and a 21 per cent increase in nominal value traded on the Bond Market, made up of a broad range of local and international individual and institutional investors,” Nemer says.
–Guardian