South African stocks fell more than one percent on Friday, led by e-commerce and media group Naspers, which was hit by a global sell-off of technology shares on concerns that valuations are over-stretched. Shares of Naspers tumbled 6.54 percent to 1,066.21 rand after a see-saw week that saw its stock move up and down on valuation concerns, mirroring moves in Chinese Internet giant Tencent in which it owns over a third.
"The consensus is that tech stocks are over-valued but the difference between now and the big bubble which peaked in March of 2000 is that these are global, established businesses which have substantial earnings," said Sasha Naryshkine, an analyst at fund manager Vestact.
The benchmark Top-40 index fell 1.13 percent to 43,116.91, while the broader all-share index lost 1.03 percent to 48,032.41.
Shares of retailer Massmart declined 2.6 percent to 134.4 rand after the company said its chief executive will step down in June, leaving the unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc in the midst of a problematic expansion across Africa and growing competition at home.
Other fallers included diversified mining group African Rainbow Minerals which fell 3.83 percent to 203.88 rand and fixed-line and mobile phone services provider Telkom SA as it lost 3.02 percent to 38.50 rand.
At least 224 million shares changed hands with decliners outpacing advancers 181 to 103, while 66 shares were unchanged.
Comments
Comments are closed.