Hive Switches From Mining Gold to Bitcoin — Surges Six-Fold

Hive Switches From Mining Gold to Bitcoin — Surges Six-Fold

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining maverick who amassed a fortune building what would become one of the world’s largest gold companies, is digging for another kind of gold: cryptocurrencies. The company he’s backed, Vancouver-based Hive Blockchain Technologies Inc., is among the first publicly traded stocks to provide exposure to crypto mining — the vast data crunching needed to verify the blockchain and the volatile currencies they produce like bitcoin and…

Read More

Egypt’s $18 Billion Debt Inflows Seen Peaking as Rate Cut Looms

Egypt’s $18 Billion Debt Inflows Seen Peaking as Rate Cut Looms

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Foreign investors may be finally curbing their enthusiasm for Egyptian local-currency debt. After almost a year and $18 billion of purchases, some investors have allocated all they can to Egypt. The inflows from foreign funds are still growing, but the pace has slowed to an average of 2 percent a week since mid-August, down from 8 percent, as policy makers signaled they may lower record interest rates once inflation eases. The surge…

Read More

Bitcoin Breaches New Milestone by Smashing Past $5,000 Mark

Bitcoin Breaches New Milestone by Smashing Past $5,000 Mark

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin surged to a fresh record Thursday as the enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies showed little sign of abating. The world’s largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 8.4 percent and was trading 7.9 percent higher at $5,209 as of 12:34 p.m. in London, resuming gains after a one-day break. As recently as December, bitcoin was trading at less than $1,000 dollars. Bitcoin tumbled below $4,000 last month after China’s central bank banned initial…

Read More

South Sudan Targets Doubling Oil Output in 2018, First Refining

South Sudan Targets Doubling Oil Output in 2018, First Refining

SOUTH SUDAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Sudan targets more than doubling oil production to 280,000 barrels per day next year as it restarts output that was suspended at some fields because of an almost four-year civil war. The government is seeking to restore production to about 150,000 barrels per day by the end of 2017, from 130,000 barrels, Petroleum Minister Ezekiel Lul Gatkuoth told an energy industry conference in the capital, Juba, on Wednesday….

Read More

Upheaval Sends Kenya’s Yields Higher Than Ghana’s for First Time

Upheaval Sends Kenya’s Yields Higher Than Ghana’s for First Time

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bond investors are getting worried about the political upheaval in Kenya. Opposition leader Raila Odinga’s decision to pull out of an election rerun on Tuesday, which threatens a constitutional crisis, spurred the yield on the nation’s dollar bonds due 2024 to rise 13 basis points. The rate climbed to 6.48 percent as of 2:50 p.m. in Nairobi, above the yield on Ghana’s Eurobonds due 2023 for the first since 2014. Kenyan notes have lost…

Read More

How Deep Will Saudi Cut Its Oil Output? To the Lowest Since 2015?

How Deep Will Saudi Cut Its Oil Output? To the Lowest Since 2015?

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Saudi Arabia has promised to do “whatever it takes” to end the global oil glut. If it cuts supplies in November by as much as it pledges, the kingdom will reduce production and exports alike by more or less a million barrels a day compared with last year. And that’s about all the world’s biggest oil exporter — and linchpin of a global plan to bolster crude markets — can do…

Read More

Rand Bulls Snub Risks as ING Sees South African Currency Rising

Rand Bulls Snub Risks as ING Sees South African Currency Rising

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Analysts at Rand Merchant Bank and ING Groep NV predict the South African currency, the second-worst emerging-market performer in the past month, will rebound against the dollar by year-end as the pull of improving fundamentals and the hunt for yield support buyers amid lingering political and fiscal risks. The rand fell to a six-month low of 13.8618 per dollar this week as tepid economic growth, an African National Congress leadership…

Read More
1 164 165 166 167 168 258