S.Africa's rand slightly weaker vs dlr, stocks fall

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 14 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand weakened slightly to the dollar on Monday but was off its day's lows as the greenback fell while stocks were in the red on profit-taking after strong gains last week.

The Johannesburg Top-40 index .JTOPI shed 1.58 percent to 22,641.60 points, while the All Share index also slipped 1.58 percent to 25,164.26 points.

"I think our market was hectically overdone. We have had a very very good run and it was time for a bit of a breather and I think that came through today," Michael Carlsson, a portfolio manager at Consilium Capital said.

The rand ZAR=D3 was trading at 7.4506 against the dollar at 1540 GMT, off its session low of 7.5405. It closed at 7.44 on Friday.

"It is dollar weakness that is pushing the dollar/rand lower this afternoon," said a Standard Bank dealer, on the rand trimming its losses late in the Johannesburg session. South Africa's National Treasury Director General Lesetja Kganyago said the proposed tie-up between mobile phone group MTN (MTNJ.J) and India's Bharti Airtel (BRTI.BO) needed cabinet level approval. [ID:nLE708115]

"There is so much speculation about Bharti and MTN no one knows what's happening ... for now just put it in the backburner." he said.

MTN fell 2.08 percent to 123.62 after the comments.

Growthpoint (GRTJ.J), South Africa's biggest listed property firm, was the most hammered on the bourse, nearing a two month low. The group dropped 5.98 percent per linked unit to 13.05 rand after going ex-dividend.

Petrochemicals group Sasol (SOLJ.J), was among the poor performers losing 2.60 percent to 300.00 rand after it reported a 33 percent drop in full-year headline earnings to end of June and forecast weaker profits for its current financial year.[ID:nLA337680]

Harmony Gold (HARJ.J) and Arcelormittal (ACLJ.J) went down 3.84 percent to 84.14 rand and 2.16 percent to 113.50 rand, respectively after Harmony and DRDGOLD (DRDJ.J) withdrew an excessive pricing complaint against ArcelorMittal.[ID:nLE29981]

Lonmin (LONJ.J), the world's third biggest platinum producer, bucked the trend tacking on 1.12 percent to 216.10 rand on prospects of a takeover potential by Xstrata (XTA.L), traders said.

African Rainbow Minerals (ARIJ.J) and SABMiller (SABJ.J) also finished the day slightly up 0.46 percent to 161.00 rand and 0.28 percent to 181.00 rand, respectively, but traders could not explain why the two stocks traded in the black.

South Africa's bonds weakened slightly, with the yield on the 2015 note ZAR157= up 1.5 basis points to 8.055 percent and that on the 2036 issue ZAR209= up by the same margin to 8.19 percent.

South Africa's Finance Minister said on Monday it was unlikely that the country and the continent would see robust growth rates seen in recent years on the back of lower demand in the United States and fewer Chinese exports. (Reporting by Vuyani Ndaba and Phakamisa Ndzamela)