📊 JSE Daily Breadth

Research Notes March 2026 > https://www.unum.capital/post/rmar2026

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Breadth Stats as at end of day on Monday, 30 March.

SUMMARY: Market breadth on the JSE has severely deteriorated, revealing a dangerously top-heavy and fragmented landscape where index levels are masking underlying structural weakness. While a highly concentrated cohort of Energy and Scarcity counters (such as SOL and OMN) are artificially propping up the top end of the matrix in extreme 🟢 OVERBOUGHT territory, true market participation is alarmingly thin. The broader "SA-Inc" foundation has cracked, evidenced by the synchronized decay of major banking heavyweights into 🟠 WEAK or ⚪ NEUTRAL daily trends, while an expanding graveyard of Discretionary Retail, Property, and Tech heavyweights (MRP, LTE, PRX) remains locked in deep 🔴 OVERSOLD capitulation. This drastic negative divergence—where the isolated parabolic thrust of a few completely overshadows the active 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM of the many—confirms a market devoid of sustainable, broad-based buying support, rendering the current environment highly vulnerable to a sudden systemic liquidity flush.

1. Tactical Surrender (Daily Bearishness): A staggering 67 out of 116 shares (57.8%) are currently languishing in the 🟠 WEAK, 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM, or 🔴 OVERSOLD Daily tiers. This mathematically confirms that broad tactical participation has collapsed and sellers dictate the short-term tape. 📉

2. The "Narrow Risk-On" Cohort: Only 23 shares (19.8%) have managed to maintain a 🟢 STRONG, 🟢 HIGH BULLISH MOMENTUM, or 🟢 OVERBOUGHT Daily status. This extreme narrowness proves that aggressive institutional buying is isolated to a tiny, defensive fraction of the index. 🔦

3. The Secular Foundation (Monthly Bullishness): Despite the short-term tactical bloodbath, 49 shares (42.2%) are still holding 🟢 STRONG or better on their Monthly macro anchors. This indicates that the long-term structural bull thesis is bent, but not yet entirely broken, for nearly half the board. 🏛️

4. The Triple-Exhaustion Peak: Exactly 2 shares (SOL, OMN) are mathematically pinned in the extreme 🟢 OVERBOUGHT tier across all three timeframes simultaneously. This absolute extreme represents max-greed positioning and zero margin of safety for late buyers. 🌋

5. The Banking Sector Flush: 100% of the major banks (ABG, SBK, FSR, NED, CPI) have lost their Daily bullish thrust, cascading directly into 🟠 WEAK or 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM. The primary engine of the "SA-Inc" rally has officially stalled out. 🏦

6. The Neutral Waiting Room: 26 shares (22.4%) are currently adrift in the ⚪ NEUTRAL Daily tier. This unusually high concentration of stasis means nearly a quarter of the market is experiencing an institutional "buyer's strike," moving sideways as smart money awaits macro clarity. 🕰️

7. Total Macro Capitulation: Multiple heavyweights—including PRX, FBR, RCL, and TRU—are printing 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM or worse across both their Weekly and Monthly timeframes. These counters represent total structural surrender and remain highly dangerous "value traps." 🪤

8. The Oversold Basement Divergence: Only 2 shares (MTH, LTE) have hit absolute 🔴 OVERSOLD on the Daily timeframe, yet 11 shares have hit that terminal floor on their long-term Weekly or Monthly charts (including names like PIK, SAP, and TFG). This divergence means the long-term structural pain in these specific names is actually far worse than the daily noise implies. 🕳️

9. Sector Polarization (Top vs. Bottom): The Resource and Scarcity sector currently holds 100% of the Top 5 momentum rankings, while Discretionary Retail and Tech hold the vast majority of the Bottom 10. The market is aggressively rewarding hard assets while punishing yield-sensitive and consumer-facing equities. 🧲

10. The Elasticity Gap: The momentum spread between the #1 ranked share (SOL, pushing deep into Overbought limits) and the #116 ranked share (LTE, bleeding in Oversold capitulation) highlights an aggressively bifurcated market. This historic rubber-band tension suggests the JSE is highly susceptible to a violent "Pairs Trade" mean-reversion event. 📏

11. The Monthly "Safe Haven" Core: Exactly 36 shares hold a perfect 🟢 STRONG rating on the Monthly timeframe (the largest single cohort on the macro chart). This shows that despite daily noise, the baseline structural health for a specific third of the market (mostly defensives, select banks, and large caps) remains intact and completely un-parabolic. ⚓

12. The Absolute "Dead Zone": 11 shares (including MRP, PRX, FBR, ITE, RCL, LTE) are completely submerged in 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM or 🔴 OVERSOLD across all three timeframes. These are toxic assets demonstrating pure institutional abandonment with zero structural floor holding them up. ☠️

13. Weekly Breakdown Acceleration: 36 shares (31%) are printing 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM or 🔴 OVERSOLD on the Weekly timeframe. This proves the current sell-off is not just a tactical 1-to-3 day liquidity event, but an entrenched, structural multi-week distribution cycle. 🌪️

14. The "Wait and See" Macro Stasis: 26 shares (22.4%) sit exactly on ⚪ NEUTRAL for their Monthly macro anchor. This indicates long-term macro indecision, where assets (like SHP, KRO, FSR, INL) are fully priced for the current rate cycle and require a massive catalyst to tip them into a new secular trend. 🧭

15. The Momentum Disconnect (The Pullback Radar): 28 shares are printing 🟠 WEAK or worse on the Daily timeframe while still miraculously holding 🟢 STRONG on the Monthly (e.g., SBK, ABG, VOD, DSY). This massive cohort represents the ultimate "Buy on Pullback" opportunity, as short-term algorithms flush prices down precisely to long-term institutional support levels. 🎯

16. The "Too Fast" Warning (Weekly Overheating): Only 8 shares are flashing 🟢 HIGH BULLISH MOMENTUM or 🟢 OVERBOUGHT on the Weekly chart (SOL, OMN, GLN, TGA, AFE, CLI, EXX, SOLBE1). A weekly reading this vertically hot historically precedes a multi-week sideways consolidation, signaling these names are actively hostile to new trend-following entries. 🥵

17. Total Macro Breadth Inversion: If we sum the absolute extremes, only 7 shares are printing 🟢 OVERBOUGHT on the Monthly chart, while nearly triple that amount (20 shares) are buried in 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM or 🔴 OVERSOLD on the Monthly chart. The macro tail of the market is currently much heavier than the macro head. ⚖️

18. The Gold Dispersion: Within the Gold/PGM sector, the technical dispersion is vast. ANG holds a 🟢 STRONG Monthly but drifts in ⚪ NEUTRAL Daily, while SSW has collapsed into 🔴 HIGH BEARISH MOMENTUM Weekly. This mathematical split proves the sector is trading strictly on individual cost curves and asset quality, not a broad commodity beta bid. 🪙

19. The Retail Death Spiral: Out of the 7 shares printing an absolute 🔴 OVERSOLD on the Weekly chart, 5 are retail/consumer-facing (SPP, CLS, TFG, PPH, WHL). The mathematical destruction concentrated here confirms the market has entirely priced out any near-term domestic consumer recovery. 🛒

20. The Alpha Squeeze Cohort: Exactly 14 shares are currently classified under the clean "Buy Breakout 🟢" category (where Daily momentum is healthy, but avoids Overbought exhaustion). These highly selective names (like DCP, HCI, KRO, S32) represent the only remaining pockets of low-friction upward mobility on the entire JSE. 🚀

Lester Davids

Senior Investment Analyst: Unum Capital