At the halfway point of last year, it seemed that 2017 was going to be another weak year on the JSE. On June 16 the FTSE/JSE All Share Index closed at 50 831, which was only a little ahead of where it opened in January.
At that point, the market was also effectively flat over the past 36 months. It was at the same levels it had been in June 2014, and there was little to suggest that it was set for a significant move.
Yet that is exactly what happened in the second half of 2017. In November the FTSE/JSE All Share Index marked a new record close of over 61 000, and eventually showed a 21% gain over the course of 2017.
A big part of these gains was of course Naspers. The bourse’s largest counter was up 71.8% for the year, and this had a major impact on the market as a whole.
However, Naspers wasn’t the only positive story on the JSE in 2017. As the table below shows, there were a number of big gainers over the course of the year in the large- and mid-cap space:
| Top-performing JSE-listed large- and mid-cap stocks in 2017 | |
| Counter | 12-month performance |
| Kumba Iron Ore | 148.5% |
| Exxaro Resources | 89.5% |
| Naspers | 71.8% |
| Greenbay Properties | 64.9% |
| Dis-Chem Pharmacies | 64.1% |
| Discovery | 64.1% |
| Capitec | 59.9% |
| Clicks | 59.3% |
| Mr Price | 58.0% |
| Assore | 57.9% |
Source: FactSet, SBG Securities
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