Market Watch

ABIDJAN (Capital Markets in Africa) — Investors placed orders for more than triple the amount of Eurobonds offered by Ivory Coast in a reopened sale Monday, evidence of the unrelenting appetite for the higher returns on riskier frontier-market assets. The west African nation, the world’s largest cocoa producer, issued 600 million euros ($725 million) more of its existing euro-denominated 4.875% coupon bonds due 2032 and 250 million euros more of the 6.625% coupon securities maturing 2048,…

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) — Egypt raised $3.75 billion of bonds on Monday as it sought to take advantage of investors’ hunger for higher-yielding assets. The North African nation issued securities due in five, 10 and 40 years, with respective yields of 3.875%, 5.875% and 7.5%. The initial price talk ranged from 4.25% on the shortest tranche to 7.875% on the longest one. A wave of monetary stimulus and optimism that coronavirus vaccine rollouts will sustain a global economic recovery…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — On Wednesday they watched their fortunes surge. They made gains collectively worth billions and bludgeoned two hedge funds. Then their holdings plummeted, only to rebound again to stratospheric heights unimaginable just a few weeks earlier. Now that members of the Reddit forum WallStreetBets have become a cultural juggernaut on Main Street and a force to be reckoned with on Wall Street, many of the investors who make up…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Commodity investors embark on an intriguing earnings season this week amid conflicting signals. Raw materials just hit a two-year high — aided by a weaker dollar, hopes for more U.S. stimulus, and gains in food prices — but signs from around the globe suggest the pandemic is worsening. Aluminum giant Alcoa Corp. is among companies in the vanguard, along with major oil-service player Schlumberger Ltd. Top banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Sentiment in South Africa’s services sector fell to a record low in the second quarter, providing further evidence that the economy probably suffered a historic decline in that period. A quarterly index measuring confidence in the sector fell to 7 from 17 in the three months through March, the Bureau for Economic Research said in an emailed statement Tuesday. That’s the lowest reading in the 15-year history of the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa): Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues have long recognized that some of the post-crisis rules that make the banking system safer also could end up making the financial markets more brittle. That’s a risk that was highlighted by last year’s turmoil in the money markets and was flagged as far back as 2014 — at a Fed board meeting that approved tough liquidity requirements to make banks more secure and which Powell…