Mystery Shrouds Tether and Its Links to Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

Mystery Shrouds Tether and Its Links to Biggest Bitcoin Exchange

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Among the many mysteries at the heart of the cryptocurrency market are these: Does $814 million of a digital token known as tether really exist? And what is tether’s connection to Bitfinex, the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange? This is the state of crypto in late 2017, where questions about the companies behind the currencies are multiplying with the profits. While cryptocurrencies appeal to people who lack faith in governments and banks, the…

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Online Fantasy Games Pay Real Money for Desperate Venezuelans

Online Fantasy Games Pay Real Money for Desperate Venezuelans

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – They start arriving even before the security shutters at the west Caracas storefront roll up at about 8:30 a.m. For 11 hours a day, they’ll hunch over old-fashioned cathode-ray tube monitors and bang on greasy keyboards in a dim space with a boarded-up window and a blanket of dust. They pause just long enough to smoke cigarettes in the stairwell. And if someone lingers too long, another eager person claims their seat and…

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OPEC Crude Output Drops to Six-Month Low on Angola Maintenance

OPEC Crude Output Drops to Six-Month Low on Angola Maintenance

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Crude production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries dropped again in November to a six-month low. Total production fell 80,000 barrels a day to 32.47 million a day last month, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data. That was the lowest level since May, when output was 32.29 million. Angola led the declines in November, with a drop of 100,000 barrels a day from…

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Oil to Open 2018 Stuck Between Thirst for Growth, Wary Investors

Oil to Open 2018 Stuck Between Thirst for Growth, Wary Investors

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Investor exhaustion with poor returns from the oil and gas industry may mean less financing to expand the U.S. shale boom next year, and less of a drive for consolidation. After nearing a record in 2016, equity issues from U.S. oil and gas companies are on pace for an eight-year low this year, amid doubts about the stability of the rally in global crude prices. Mergers and acquisitions and…

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Goldman’s an Oil Bull in 2018 With 9% Total Returns Forecast

Goldman’s an Oil Bull in 2018 With 9% Total Returns Forecast

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts oil prices will retain their strength, at least through 2018. The bank raised its forecast for U.S. West Texas Intermediate as well as global benchmark Brent crude, saying OPEC and its allies showed a stronger commitment than expected to extending their output curbs at the producer group’s meeting last week. It expects positive total returns of 9 percent from crude over the next 12 months, according to a…

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Supreme Court Lets Trump Travel Ban Take Full Effect for Now

Supreme Court Lets Trump Travel Ban Take Full Effect for Now

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – A divided Supreme Court let President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. from six mostly Muslim countries take full effect while legal challenges go forward, handing him a major victory and suggesting the court ultimately will uphold the restrictions. Trump will now be able to bar or limit entry by people from the Mideast and North African nations even if they have a relationship with a U.S.-based person…

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Ivory Coast Confident `Turbulent’ 2017 Is Over as Calm Back

Ivory Coast Confident `Turbulent’ 2017 Is Over as Calm Back

ABIDJAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ivory Coast is unlikely to repeat the upheaval of 2017, when it had to bow to the pay demands of mutinous soldiers and striking government workers while prices for its biggest export plummeted, Finance Minister Adama Kone said. The West African nation received financial support from the International Monetary Fund to cope with individual payments of almost $20,000 to more than 8,000 military staff and a settlement of more than $400 million…

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