JSE's outperformance in February rides a precious-metals rally

In its local market commentary for February 2026, asset manager Anchor Capital described the JSE's continued outperformance as being driven substantially by the precious-metals rally that had carried gold above $5,000 and platinum toward its own record highs the previous month. With South African-listed miners carrying unusually heavy weight in the FTSE/JSE All Share Index, the January price records for gold, platinum and other PGMs flowed almost immediately into the exchange's headline performance.

A structural feature of the JSE

South Africa's stock exchange is unusual among major emerging-market bourses in how directly its benchmark index tracks global commodity prices, a consequence of decades in which mining houses grew to dominate its largest listings. Anchor Capital's commentary reflected a pattern that would recur repeatedly through 2026: whenever gold, platinum or rhodium moved sharply, whether up in January or down in June, the JSE All Share Index moved with it, often overshadowing purely domestic economic or political news in determining the exchange's direction on any given day.

A rally that did not last the year

The precious-metals-driven outperformance Anchor Capital described in February proved to be one phase in a much more volatile year for South African equities. By the second quarter, the same shares that had powered February's gains were among the JSE's worst performers as gold fell sharply, before staging a fresh recovery in August that pushed the index back above the 116,000 level by early September, a round trip that illustrated just how central precious-metals sentiment had become to South African equity market performance in 2026.

Fund managers said the concentration risk this created was well understood within the local investment industry, but that few practical alternatives existed for tracking the broader South African equity market without also taking on substantial exposure to the same volatile commodity price swings driving the mining sector.

International investors allocating to South African equities through index-tracking vehicles were, in effect, taking a leveraged bet on global gold and platinum sentiment whether they intended to or not, a dynamic that Anchor Capital and other local asset managers spent much of the year explaining to clients.

Sources

• Anchor Capital: February local commentary: The JSE's outperformance continues amid precious metals rally, 02 Mar 2026

Photo: The Johannesburg Stock Exchange building, whose index outperformance in February 2026 was driven largely by precious-metals shares. Nabucco Fisico, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.