JSE Index Reclaims 116,000 as Miners Rally While Naspers and Prosus Drag
Markets · South Africa
Key Facts
- —The stakes The FTSE/JSE All Share Index closed at 116,687.82 on 3 September 2026, up 1.40% on the day.
- —The swing The index was down 0.45% year-to-date on 6 August 2026, before rallying hard through the rest of that month.
- —The high The index reached its 2026 peak of 129,339.03 in March.
- —The turnaround Miners dragged the index down in June, then drove it up 4.6% in August; Naspers and Prosus were August’s drag instead.
- —The catch Despite the rebound, the index is still roughly 10% below its March peak.
- —The outlook The path into 2027 depends on metals prices, bank earnings, Naspers/Prosus, and foreign capital.
A Johannesburg market that hit 129,000 in March fell below 111,000 by mid-year. It is now back above 116,000.
The JSE All Share’s 2026 story is a tug-of-war between sectors. Miners dragged the index down, then pulled it back up; banks stayed steady throughout.
The 2026 index: a rough ride, then a rebound
The FTSE/JSE All Share Index tracks shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, or JSE. It closed at 116,687.82 on 3 September 2026, up 1.40% on the day.
That level was 16.18% higher than a year earlier. The index hit its 2026 high of 129,339.03 in March, then slid through the middle of the year.
By 6 August it stood at 115,306.31, down 0.45% for the year to date. A related gauge, the Capped All Share Index, had fallen 3.7% in June alone, down 2.8% at the half-year mark.
September’s close was still about 10% below the March peak. But the index had clearly turned a corner by late August, as the sections below explain.
Why miners flipped from drag to driver
Precious-metals miners caused most of the 2026 damage, then most of the recovery. In June, falling gold and platinum prices pulled the index down; in August, rising prices pulled it back up.
That sector, known as resources, can move the whole JSE, because mining shares carry unusually heavy weight in the index.
A sub-index groups related shares, such as gold or platinum miners, inside the wider benchmark. Year-to-date means the change since the last trading day of 2025, while year-on-year compares today with the same date a year earlier.
June: gold and platinum miners sink the index
Gold prices fell 12% in June 2026, toward $4,000 an ounce, down about a quarter from January. Platinum fell even harder, down 19% for the month and roughly a quarter for the year to date.
Mining shares tracking those metals dropped 15% and 23% respectively in June. Anchor Capital, a local research firm, said miners alone cost the index about 4.5 percentage points that month.
August: a record month for precious-metals miners
The picture flipped sharply in August. Gold miners surged 38% for the month as the gold price jumped 9.7%, and platinum miners rose 21.6% as platinum gained 9%.
By 21 August, gold neared US$4,600 an ounce and platinum broke above US$1,900 for the first time since early June. Harmony Gold and Sibanye-Stillwater were among the shares that rallied on a weaker US dollar.
Anchor Capital said the Capped All Share Index rose 4.6% in August, its second straight positive month. Precious-metals miners alone added roughly 5 percentage points to that gain.
Banks: steady domestic support
South Africa‘s big four banks are FirstRand, Standard Bank, Absa and Nedbank. They are a reliable proxy for local credit growth and confidence in the domestic economy.
Banks rose 3% in June and were up 10.6% for the first half of 2026, cushioning the index against the mining slump. FirstRand is the JSE’s largest bank by market value; Standard Bank is the largest lender in Africa by assets.
Naspers and Prosus: from anchor to drag
Naspers is a South African internet and media group; Prosus is its international arm. Both carry heavy weight on the JSE mainly through their stake in Tencent, the Chinese internet company.
Naspers and Prosus fell about 4% together in June, then dropped further in August, with Naspers down 9% and Prosus down 6%. Currency swings and weaker Chinese tech shares drove the August slide.
Retailers with offshore exposure also struggled in August. SPAR fell 20%, and drink and tobacco groups AB InBev and British American Tobacco each fell more than 10%.
Foreign investors and the grey-list exit
South Africa left the global Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, grey list in 2025. The FATF tracks countries with weak money-laundering controls; leaving its list eases friction for foreign banks.
That exit is widely seen as a tailwind for foreign interest in South African shares. A single, official monthly figure for 2026 foreign buying or selling of JSE shares was not available for this article.
The delisting trend, with real numbers
Companies have been leaving the JSE for years, most through mergers, buyouts or takeovers rather than failures. JSE data cited by News24 in April 2026 show 514 delistings from 1989 to 2024, with 80% before 2005.
Listings have not kept pace. Six new companies joined the JSE in 2025, with two more expected soon, the same report said.
Fewer listed companies mean fewer choices for investors and a market more concentrated in its largest names. That concentration is a long-running concern for the exchange’s depth.
How foreigners can access the JSE
Foreign investors typically use a local South African broker, an international broker with JSE access, or JSE-listed exchange-traded funds. An exchange-traded fund, or ETF, is a basket of shares that trades like a single stock.
South Africa has exchange-control rules that can affect non-resident money. Anyone investing from abroad should confirm current account, tax and currency rules with a regulated broker before committing funds.
Currency risk cuts both ways
The JSE trades in rand, so a foreign investor’s return depends on share prices and the currency together. A rising index paired with a weakening rand can leave a dollar-based investor with a smaller gain than the headline number suggests.
The rand traded near 16 to the US dollar in early September 2026. That is a separate story from the index itself, but the two move together often enough to matter.
Outlook: three forces, one index
Three factors will most likely decide the JSE’s path from here. Precious-metals prices will keep steering the resources-heavy benchmark, in either direction.
Bank earnings and domestic credit growth will set a floor for locally focused shares. Naspers and Prosus, tied to Tencent’s fortunes in Hong Kong, will keep adding swings of their own.
August showed how fast leadership can change hands on this market. Whether banks, miners or Naspers-Prosus lead next will decide if the index revisits 129,000 or stays near 116,000.
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