Appetite for SA exposure stokes buying in JSE's own stock

Momentum in South Africa's equity market, sparked by landmark elections earlier this year, is maintaining its pace, with the stock exchange's own shares among the targets for investors chasing returns.

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"One way to get exposure to the growth of Africa's capital markets would be the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which is a publicly listed company," said Thea Jamison, managing director at Change Global Investment LLC, which has been buying the shares.

The JSE, which operates Africa's biggest stock and bond exchanges and acts as a proxy for South African companies more broadly, has risen almost three times as fast as the benchmark index over the past four months.

Political changes in SA, bringing renewed interest from investors, coupled with rising trading fees and relatively cheap valuation, are making the exchange's shares attractive, Jamison added.

The dividend yield, showing the return an investor can expect from dividends alone (expressed as a percentage of the stock price), is 6.4% on a trailing 12-month basis and 6.8% based on Bloomberg dividend forecasts for the next 12 months.

That's the second highest among its peers behind the Warsaw Stock Exchange.