Financial services turmoil on JSE as global stock markets tumble amid trade war fears

SOUTH Africa’s financial services led the JSE lower on Wednesday as the local bourse tracked larger declines in stock markets after the world’s two main trading economies US and China are at a trade war with each other.

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The exchange markets for stocks exchanges due to the imposition of import tariffs by US President Donald Trump on the US’s trade partners and counter levies by China saw the JSE All Share Index lower by 2.07% to 82 486 points while the Nikkei and Dow Jones also fell.

Similarly the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE 100 Index had fallen 1.25% as Europe’s blue-chip index of leading blue-chip companies in Europe had fallen 3.8% while the Nikkei had ended 3.9% lower in Japan.

On the JSE, the declines were led by the biggest financial services groups in the country, with the share price of Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest bank by assets, falling a whopping 8.48% to R193.93 as the afternoon, while Old Mutual’s share price was down 8.8% to R26.46.