S.Africa stocks end flat, platinum miners gain

South African stocks ended flat on Wednesday with the weak rand supporting exporters and platinum miners such as Northam, which investors were starting to view as oversold.

Investors will be watching U.S. jobless claim figures that are due out on Thursday, and any news out or Europe for direction, said Ferdi Heyneke, portfolio manager at Afrifocus Securities.

The blue-chip Top-40 index closed trade largely unchanged, having gained only 2.85 points to 29,308.49. The wider All-Share was flat at 32,672.67.

Platinum miners Northam rose 3.26 percent to 32.00 rand, while Anglo American Platinum, the world's largest producer of the crucial industrial metal, gained 0.9 percent to 575.15 rand.

Platinum shares have been lagging the market and with the rand weakening, those shares could see some recovery as well, Heyneke said. A weaker rand is a boon to miners who make their earnings in dollars.

Rand weakness has been a key theme this week. The rand was trading at 8.1450 per dollar in late trade, having made some gains after earlier falling below 8.20 to its weakest level in nearly four weeks.

Paper manufacturer Sappi rose nearly 3 percent with buyers piling into the stock, which had fallen to three-month lows. The maker of fine paper used for glossy magazines announced a loss in the fourth quarter last week, but said it would raise production of the lucrative chemical cellulose.

Mining contractor Sentula lost 5.1 percent to 2.03 rand after the company flagged that it could make an interim loss of as much as 38.97 cents per share.

There were more decliners than advancers at the exchange with 138 firms ending lower and 131 adding value. Some 182.4 million shares were traded, according to the latest bourse statistics at 1554 GMT, compared with 239.2 million in the previous session.