Senior Analyst, Rand Swiss

Shaun is a senior analyst specialising in derivatives trading and technical analysis across index, commodity, FX, and equity markets. With nearly 20 years of experience in financial markets, Shaun brings deep expertise to his role, presenting research and analysis to Rand Swiss clients. Shaun is a regular commentator on local and global financial markets, contributing to major media outlets including CNBC Africa, Reuters, Moneyweb, and Business Day. He produces daily and weekly market reports focused on technical analysis and trading opportunities in his core markets. As a registered person at the JSE and a Certified Financial Technician (CFTE), Shaun combines formal credentials with practical market expertise.

You can follow Shaun on Twitter at @ShaunMurison_RS for regular market updates and trading insights.

The Top40 consolidates as financials outperform a mixed local backdrop

Tuesday, 30 June 2026

The J40 holds above support in oversold territory, although price action still suggests consolidation rather than a clear reversal. The rand remains rangebound, gold stays vulnerable at support, and brent crude has pulled back to fresh lows. Locally, financials continue to outperform while resources face pressure from weakening gold and platinum producers and industrials trade mixed.

Inside this update:

• J40 Cash Index
• ZAR
• Commodities
• JSE Sector Analysis & Trade Setups

J40 Cash Index

The J40 Cash Index has started to consolidate over the last few days, above support and in oversold territory.

But rather than a reversal, it does look like we are consolidating at these lower levels, so again it becomes dangerous to pre-empt the start of a rally.

We have added a weekly balance point as our short-term directional filter. This level sits at 102,889. For longs we want to see a close above here to suggest a move out of the short-term consolidation and towards resistance at 104,234. While the price remains below the 102,889 level, we are not interested in new long positions and consider further consolidation or possible drift lower.

USD/ZAR

The USD/ZAR reached the 16.65 resistance target although reversed short of the 16.75 level. The rangebound price environment persisted with a reversal (circled blue) now suggesting a move back towards the 16.29 to 16.14 range.

Our preference would be to sit out the current move and rather wait for a new signal closer to the upper or lower end of the broader guided range.

Commodities

Gold

Gold remains vulnerable. The price recently broke both the 4,098 and 4,025 support levels. Today we currently have an intraday reversal forming from oversold territory. Our conviction for the long trade is low until such time as we can see some follow-through and momentum from a bullish reversal. This could come in the form of a close above the 4,098 level once again. Failing this, we feel that the 3,923 and 3,885 support levels could instead be tested in the near term.

Brent Crude Oil

The price of brent crude has now reached our lower gap support target and in so doing reached pre–US / Iran war levels. Should current support not hold, 70.58 and 67.11 are the next support considerations.

While the trend is now affirmed as down, crude does now lie within oversold territory. The oversold signal suggests either consolidation or short term rebound from current levels, although our view is trend takes precedence and therefore would not look to trade for a possible rebound.

Financials

JSE Financials remain the outperformer within our local market environment. The price of the index has now returned to the breakout point of our rectangle consolidation.

The index and in turn several of its constituents have now started to pullback from overbought territory with some possible buying opportunities starting to emerge.

Shares on our watchlist for possible longs include Firstrand, Standard Bank (below) and Capitec. Shares currently excluded from this opportunity watchlist are Discovery and ABSA, due to the nature of aggressive negative short-term price action.

Standard Bank

After breaking out of a triangle shaped consolidation, the share price of Standard bank has pulled back to support (previous resistance). The breakout and pullback suggest a second opportunity for long entry with a retest of the high at 338.73 considered. Traders who are long might use a close below the low at 304 as a stop loss indication.

Resources

The Resource index has now broken long-term trend line support. The break of trend line support doesn’t automatically assume a new long-term downtrend. The price could also be moving into a period of consolidation.

Gold and platinum producers are under pressure and weighing on the index, although heavyweight diversified miners such as BHP and Anglo American do still have healthy uptrends intact. BHP and Anglo’s price action does, however, warn of a possible short-term top as well.

The BHP Group

The long-term trend for BHP remains up. Of concern is the large topping formation above our solid red line. The formation suggests that we could have a deeper correction of the long-term uptrend. Our approach would be to wait out weakness (should it ensue) and the look for long entry closer to a lower level or trend line support.

Anglo American PLC

The chart of Anglo American is very similar to that of BHP in that we have a possible topping formation suggesting a deeper pullback within the long-term uptrend. Our approach would then also be the same i.e. waiting for weakness (should it occur) to play out before looking for long entry closer to trendline support.

Industrials

The industrial index shows a broader consolidation across the mix of non-financial and non-resource counters. Within this sector we have seen retail counters under pressure while a handful of stocks (Telecoms, Richemont, Aspen, Bidvest and Remgro) have helped buoy the index.

Range bound environments suggest trading to targets or waiting for a bigger breakout for directional commitment.

Our preference remains looking to find long entry into the outperforming shares within the sector, as in the names mentioned above. The underperforming (retail) counters have had a lot of risk priced in so find increased danger on the short side, although have not yet given enough indications that the prices are ready to reverse course just yet (perhaps with the exclusion of Shoprite).