The Markets | - Part 152

The Hot Spots That Defined a Year of Emerging-Market Ebullience

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – 2017 is set to go down as the year when easy monetary policy and budding global growth came together to deliver blockbuster returns for the world’s emerging markets. Currencies and stocks in developing economies are on track for their biggest rallies in eight years as even the riskiest markets shrug off crises and threats to deliver gains for investors. Bonds, too, have had a good run, with local-currency emerging-market debt returning the most since…

Bitcoin Is the Most Perfect Bubble Possible

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – What else would you call something that, as of Tuesday morning, has gone up 47 percent the past week, 181 percent the past month, and 2,119 percent the past year? Not to mention the most remarkable part of this all: It has happened for no discernible reason. People haven’t started to actually, you know, use bitcoins much more than they did a year ago, but that hasn’t stopped its…

Bitcoin Shorts Are Hard to Find, Keeping Futures Above Spot

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – For traders used to seeing arbitrage plays vanish within seconds, bitcoin futures’ rise back to more than $1,300 above the spot price a full day after their debut is another testament to the cryptocurrency’s unconventional evolution. Professional investors and analysts predict the premium will collapse over time. Yet its persistence and volatility — from as low as 1.8 percent to as high as 13 percent — indicate how a market that’s captured Wall Street’s…

Top Frontier Bond Manager Sees Best Value in Local Debt

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – One of the most successful money managers in the world’s riskiest markets piled into local-currency debt this year, and plans to stick with the bet for 2018. Kevin Daly, who runs Aberdeen Asset Management Plc’s $125 million frontier-markets bond fund, outperformed 99 percent of peers this year as he doubled investments in domestic government notes. Now almost a third of his holdings are non-dollar assets, including local securities from Egypt, Mongolia,…

Zinc, Copper Outlook Key When Glencore Speaks to Investors

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) The commodities world will be scrutinizing Glencore Plc’s annual investor day on Tuesday for clues on when the top metals trader will restart shuttered zinc and copper production, as well as its plans to expand in agriculture. Here’s a few things to look out for: Zinc Zinc has rallied 86 percent since Glencore curtailed output at some mines two years ago to revive languishing prices. With the metal now near the highest…

EOH Says Directors’ Margin Calls Caused Stock-Price Plunge

Posted on by The Editorial Team

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – EOH Holdings Ltd. said forced stock sales due to margin calls involving two directors caused a 35 percent plunge in the stock on Dec. 7. The decline was “triggered by the forced sale of shares by financial institutions against equity-financed transactions to various individual shareholders including two EOH directors,” the Johannesburg-based technology services company said in a statement on Monday. Jehan Mackay, the chief executive officer of the public…

South African Regulator Probes Trades in Gupta-Linked Oakbay

Posted on by The Editorial Team

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – A South African financial regulator is investigating trades in Oakbay Resources and Energy Ltd., a company linked to the politically connected Gupta family, to determine whether share prices were manipulated over a five-month period. The Financial Services Board will probe share moves from when Oakbay listed in November 2014 through April 2015, the Pretoria-based institution said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. The stock rose almost 11 percent over that…

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