There have been a few trading updates this morning, the biggest one from a market capitalisation point of view is undoubtedly from FirstRand. This is for the full year to end June 2012, and the update needed to be good. The stock is up 37 percent over the last 12 months, the trading update needed to be the very best. The company suggests to their shareholders that "diluted normalised earnings per share from continuing operations" is the most accurate when representing "operational performance".
OK. For the year FirstRand expects this to increase by between 22 to 27 percent from the same measure of 179.4 cents last year. In the middle of that range expect 223.4 cents per share, which I guess is about just right for the stock which is trading at 28 ZAR a share. Up over two percent on the day, which indicates that the market is quite clearly pleased with this result. Banks as a whole have been on a tear this year, gaining over 20 percent as a collective, but these results have lived up to the markets expectations. The yield based on the expectations of just over two times dividend cover sees this investment around 3.75 percent. Not awesome, but comparable to the current cash rates available for cash deposits. I would like to see whether or not their innovative product offering has managed to capture more market share. The consensus is in the affirmative. Steve from {expletive} bank is seeing his job getting harder and harder. The results are expected next Tuesday, in what is a very busy week for results.