JOHANNESBURG, July 18 (Xinhua) -- South African rand's strength against the U.S. dollar pulled down the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) on Tuesday, ending the promising run in the previous few days.
The local unit traded at R12.92 to the dollar by close of session.
The all-share index closed 1.05 percent lower at 53,621.64 points, while the top 40 index traded 1.2 percent lower at 46,927.84 points, and the resource 20 index slipped 1.46 percent, trimming month-to-date gains to 6 percent.
Financial stocks were 0.91 percent weaker as the Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee began a three-day meeting to decide on interest rates on Thursday.
On the JSE, global resources company Anglo was off 1.43 percent to R189.31, with Impala Platinum losing 1.65 percent to R35.74, but Lonmin rose 12.75 percent to R14.5.
MTN also one of the star performers, gained 2.64 percent to R119.75.
Sasol was 1.5 percent lower at R374.2 after gaining 3.23 percent over the past week.
Richmond was 1.19 percent lower at R107.58 and Aspen shed 2.74 percent to R272.84. Aspen has been on the slide lately and lost 3.11 percent over the previous seven days.
Among the resources shares, BHP lost 1.49 percent to R220.11. Anglo lost 1.38 percent to R189.4.
Standard Bank which gained 6.87 percent over the previous week, added 0.7 percent to trade at R153.3. FirstRand was however 0.7 percent softer at R51.
