Gold shares tumbled yesterday morning, with AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and Harmony all declining by more than 4% - and 7.3% in Harmony's case. However, they recovered strongly in the afternoon as the gold price added more than 2%, rising above $1,800 an ounce. Harmony went from being one of the biggest losers of the morning to topping the JSE's winners board, with a gain of 5.6%.

Precious metals companies were also in the spotlight as they continued to report back on their first-quarter operating performances. Gold Fields has maintained its guidance for the year despite the impact of Covid-19 on its South Deep mine back in January. But it was Sibanye-Stillwater that drew the most attention. It made more in core earnings from its South African platinum operations in the three months to end-March than it actually paid for them.

Meanwhile, Karooooo has delivered its first earnings since its Nasdaq listing last month - although the performance of its Cartrack subsidiary covers the period before the listing.

Read on for more on those stories, as well as interim results from Kaap Agri and quarterly numbers from paper and pulp group Sappi.

Finally, DealMakers has all the latest mergers and acquisitions news.

Have a good weekend.

Stephen Gunnion

Managing Editor, InceConnect