The JSE’s top 40 and all share indices were both down about 0.25% at 9.40am on Thursday morning.

The rand holding under R12.30 to the dollar outweighed the Brent crude oil price rising 0.5% to $66.23 a barrel for Sasol‚ sending it down 1.94% to R410.

The gold miners’ index was down 2% despite the spot gold price rising 0.4% to $1‚292.28 an ounce.

Sibanye suffered most with a 2.87% drop to R15.24‚ followed by Harmony’s 2.7% drop to R22.31 and Gold Fields’s 2.1% drop to R53.35.

Platinum miners also suffered‚ with Sibanye’s takeover target Lonmin down 2.17% to R13.50 and Impala Platinum down 1.51% to R30.74.

Retailers continued their Santa rally. Mr Price gained 2.28% to R244.97‚ Dis-Chem pharmacies 1.77% to R36.20‚ and Truworths 1.22% to R92.90.

On the second last trading day of 2017‚ Kumba Iron Ore is headed to be the JSE’s best performer for the year with a 128% gain‚ followed by Astral Foods with a 113% annual rise.

The most disastrous share to have owned in 2017 was Steinhoff International which has plunged 93%‚ followed by Consolidated Infrastructure group which is down 85%.

The overall JSE‚ as measured by the Satrix Top 40 exchange-traded fund‚ has gained 19.4% year-to-date.

In terms of geographically-focused exchange-traded products‚ the best area to have invested in was China‚ with Deutsche Bank’s MSCI China exchange-traded note up 44.7%‚ followed by its MSCI Emerging Market sister which gained 24.1% over the year.

The Ramaphosa rand rally has seen South African blue-chip trackers beat their developed market counterparts. Sygnia’s Euro Stoxx 50 index tracker did best with an 11.3% annual gain‚ followed by its MSCI Japan index tracker which gained 7.2% over 2017.