Stocks moved deeper into the red by noon on Wednesday with resources leading the falls amid weaker global markets and dented sentiment on the back of troubling consumer confidence figures in the US.

At 12.08pm the JSE all share index had lost 1.42 percent, with resources falling 1.97 percent, platinum producers off 1.11 percent and gold counters losing 1.01 percent.

Banks declined 1.73 percent, financials gave up 1.30 percent and industrials weakened 0.88 percent.

The rand was bid at 7.72 to the dollar from 7.65 when the JSE closed on Tuesday. Gold was quoted at $1035.57 a troy ounce from $1036.65/oz just before the JSE's last close, and platinum was at $1314/oz, from $1309.50/oz at its previous close.

"We are down quite a lot on the market. Consumer confidence out of the US really hit the market. The American consumer, who is the driver of the world, is under pressure," a local trader said.

"Locally we saw that as the market has gone up, overseas investors have been buying our stock and pushing the market up. Now they are selling and fleeing to the safe haven dollar.

"We've had a massive rally. I think we can still see some weakness, the question is for how long," he said.

"I'd still be cautious. For the day we are likely to move lower or sideways. Dow futures are down at the moment, we will have to see what the US does," he added.

Dow Jones Newswire reports that the Deutsche Bank initiates five UK real estate investment trust stocks. Says UK-REITs have rallied strongly following capital raisings to repair balance sheets, with the sector up 61 percent since March. Initiates British Land (BLND.LN), Hammerson (HMSO.LN) and Land Securities (LAND.LN) at buy with 540p, 475p and 740p targets respectively. Says the buy-rated stocks are all trading below their prospective two-year forward NAVs, implying potential upside of 10-15 percent over the next 12 months.

Initiates Liberty International (LII.LN) and Segro (SGRO.LN) at hold with 535p and 405p targets respectively.

The FTSE 100 was last down 1.28 percent.

US stocks are called to open lower on Wednesday, after the Nasdaq on Tuesday posted its biggest one-day drop since 1 October. David Morrison at GFT called the DJIA down 30 points and the S&P 500 down 3.5 points. A fall in Advanced Micro Devices shares in Frankfurt is also giving nervous investors an excuse to take money back out of technology stocks, he said.

"There is a general feeling of tiredness and concern about how markets will hold up when stimulus packages are withdrawn," he added. Durable goods are at 12.30pm GMT and new homes sales are at 2pm GMT.