JSE reclaims 116,000 as gold and platinum miners surge 38% and 21.6% in August

The FTSE/JSE All Share Index closed at 116,687.82 on 3 September 2026, reclaiming a level it had last held some months earlier, as gold and platinum group metals miners staged an exceptionally strong August. Gold mining equities surged approximately 38% during the month, while PGM producers gained about 21.6%, more than offsetting a 9% fall in Naspers and a 6% drop in Prosus, whose declines were driven by currency swings and weaker Chinese technology shares.

The rally in mining shares came as gold ETF inflows returned at a record pace and the metal itself recovered ground after its sharp mid-year correction, while PGM prices, and the basket price South African producers realise, also firmed after the volatility seen earlier in the year in platinum and rhodium.

Miners once again setting the market's direction

August's rebound underlined a theme that had run through the JSE's performance for most of 2026: whichever way gold and PGM shares moved in a given month tended to determine whether the broader index rose or fell, regardless of what was happening among the index's technology-heavy Naspers and Prosus holdings. Analysts framed the coming months as a question of which of the index's two dominant forces, resources or the Naspers-Prosus pairing, would set the tone: continued mining strength could push the JSE toward the 129,000 level it had touched earlier in the cycle, while renewed weakness in precious metals could see it settle back near 116,000.

A reminder of concentration risk

The scale of the August swing, a single sector move large enough to offset a simultaneous slide in the index's other dominant constituent, illustrated just how concentrated the JSE's fortunes have become in a handful of commodity and technology names, leaving the exchange unusually exposed to swings in global gold and platinum sentiment.

Strategists said the rebound illustrated how quickly sentiment toward South African resource shares could reverse, noting that many of the same counters posting double-digit percentage gains in August had been among the index's worst performers only two months earlier during June's gold-driven sell-off.

Index providers noted that the swing added to a long-running debate about whether South Africa's benchmark index had become too concentrated in a small number of resource and technology names to serve as a reliable barometer of the broader economy.

Sources

• Rio Times Online: JSE Index Reclaims 116,000 as Miners Rally While Naspers and Prosus Drag, 03 Sept 2026

Photo: The Johannesburg Stock Exchange building; gold and platinum shares drove the index back above 116,000 in September 2026. Andres de Wet, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.