10 best and worst performing companies on the JSE

Bytes Technology Group, Advanced Health, and Gold Fields are the best-performing share on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in the first six months of the year.

On the other side of the spectrum, Steinhoff International Holdings, Mantengu Mining, and Transaction Capital were the worst performers.

Many stock markets have had a good start to the year. The S&P 500 is up 15.9% in 2023, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 31.7%.

However, South Africa faced many headwinds, including load-shedding, rising interest rates caused by sticky inflation, and FATF grey listing.

It has a significant impact on many companies which rely on South Africa for most of their revenue and profit.

However, the largest companies on the JSE, like BHP Group, Naspers, Anheuser-Busch Inbev, Richemont, Glencore, and BAT are international companies.

This helped the JSE Top 40 to increase by 2.1% and the JSE All Share Index by 3.8% in the first six months of 2023.

The JSE All-Share Index (ALSI) consists of the largest 164 listed companies and is almost 100% of the market cap and liquidity of the market.

The JSE Top 40 Index refers to the 40 largest companies on the JSE, including many big international companies mentioned before.

The table below shows the best and worst-performing companies on the JSE over the last six months based on total returns.