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The Mid Cap index is supposed to be the next 60 largest shares trading on the JSE, after the Top 40. In practice it sometimes contains 59 or 61, for actuarial reasons. At the time of writing it only consisted of 57 shares. Many of these mid-cap shares are, in fact, high-quality, blue chips and they are definitely worthy of your attention as a private investor. At the time of writing, the largest component of the index was Clicks which accounted for over 4.5%. After that came Gold Fields at over 4%, with Impala Platinum and The Foschini Group also at about 4%. Then there was quite a few largish companies in the 3% range – like Life Healthcare, The Spare Group, Sappi, Netcare, Quilter, AVI and Truworths International. So this index really does tell you what is happening in the South African economy. Many of these shares do have overseas interests, but the bulk of the Mid Cap does business here in South Africa. It is worth noting that quite a few of these shares are commodity shares – so the index is skewed for the progress of commodities. Over the past few years, the most popular mid-caps have been property shares and industrials, but that changed, at least as far as property was concerned, since the concerns that surrounded the Resilient Group.

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