Our local bourse started its trading session relatively unchanged after U.S stocks closed lower on Wednesday night amid a series of economic data that continued to show moderate growth ahead of Friday’s key jobs report. The JSE all share managed to climb steadily throughout the day eventually finishing higher by 0.75%. Our Banking sector advanced by 2.73% with Standard Bank rising 5.41% on the back of its provisional results which were released to the market while FirstRand also enjoyed a good session, adding 2.20%. Our Property shares continued to surge higher with Resilient, Hyprop and Redefine adding 4.31%, 4.21% and 4.31% respectively for the day, all reaching new all-time highs. Our platinum sector continued to slide, dropping 3.87% with the likes of Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum shedding 3% and 4.51% for the day respectively. On the data front, The European Central bank kept interest rates unchanged at record lows whilst also committing to its first asset purchases next week in a program amounting to 60bn euros. Out of the US, unemployment claims increased by 7000 claims to 320k from 313k previously whilst Factory orders fell for the sixth straight month, sliding by 0.2% in January. On the company front, Exxaro released its results for the year ended 31 December 2014 showing its adjusted full-year earnings fell 6% due to an impairment charge of R5.8bn related to its iron project in the Congo Republic. Headline earnings per share came in at 1372 cents, down 6% from the previous period while also slashing their dividend by a third to 210c per share. Sanlam released their audited results for the year ended 31 December 2014 indicating that normalised headline earnings per share increased by 3% while also mentioning that they are working on acquisitions worth over R2bn in the rest of Africa and other emerging markets. Standard Bank released their provisional results for the year ended 31 December 2014 showing that headline earnings from continuing operations were up 20% and surprised investors by raising its dividend by 12%. Aspen issued their unaudited interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2014 indicating that they had increased gross revenue by 47% to R19.0bn whilst raising operating profit by 50% to R4.3bn supported by the contribution from acquisitions concluded in the prior year. Aspen said that normalised headline EPS came in at 569 cents compared to 468 cents a year earlier. Value traded for the day came in at R22.6bn.