The Markets | - Part 173

Top Bond Guru Pulls Back From Brazil and Heads to Africa

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – One of the top investors in emerging-market bonds is putting his money in Africa. Stone Harbor Investment Partners’s Jim Craige, who manages the world’s best-performing fund this year, is buying dollar-denominated debt from Angola, Ghana, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Zambia, while paring holdings from Brazil and Mexico. He says sub-Saharan countries were unfairly punished in 2016 and now present the best value in developing nations. After a multi-year rally sent…

China’s Rise Will Change How Investors View Riskiest Markets

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – China’s Belt and Road initiative will provide a boon for frontier markets, but investors should probably do their homework before following Beijing’s money trail. Funding channelled as part of the Chinese-style globalization drive typically doesn’t come with expectations for reform, like aid provided by multilateral lenders. That means access to Chinese funds could see countries delay engaging with the International Monetary Fund for rescue packages, says Hasnain Malik, the…

Novogratz Set for Return With Hedge Fund Riding Bitcoin `Bubble’

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mike Novogratz is reinventing himself as the king of bitcoin. The swaggering macro manager who flamed out at Fortress Investment Group LLC is starting a $500 million hedge fund to invest in cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and related companies. Novogratz will put up $150 million of his own money and plans to raise $350 million more by January, mainly from family offices, wealthy individuals and fellow hedge fund managers, said a person…

Bitcoin and Copper in Lockstep Show Chinese Speculators’ Power

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Copper and bitcoin don’t obviously have much in common. One is an industrial metal, mined by giant trucks and used in everything from computer chips to plumbing tubes, the other a cryptocurrency that’s ’mined’ only in a virtual sense. Yet the two have been moving in near unison for the past two months. Bitcoin and copper both rallied strongly from mid-July to early September. Then when bitcoin tumbled as…

Crypto-Mania Grips Hong Kong as City Looks Beyond Banking

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – In the mid-1990s, Johnson Leung embarked on a career in shipping. In the early 2000s, he moved to finance. And now, he runs a Hong Kong startup that aims to improve how container ships are booked using blockchain technology. Many in Hong Kong hope the city can make a similar leap. The shipping and banking hub, which has struggled for years to nurture a domestic technology industry, is embracing the blockchain…

Why `Contracts for Difference’ Are Under Scrutiny

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Contracts for difference, or CFDs, have hastened the demise of an Irish bank, triggered Ponzi schemes in Chile and featured in a $100 million U.S. insider-trading racket. More recently, they’ve spooked European regulators because of the risks they pose to retail investors. There are proposals to cap potential investor losses and to ban advertising of CFDs, which are pitched to investors via television commercials and sponsorships of soccer clubs from Real Madrid to…

Unintended Result of Nigerian Dollar Hunt Is Naira Shortage

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – First Nigerian businesses were hit by a dollar shortage. Now there aren’t enough naira. A central bank requirement that companies back forward dollar purchases with naira is drying up supplies, helping to underpin a 2.1 percent gain since the local currency fell to a record low against the greenback on Aug. 9. At the same time, an increase in government borrowing is spurring banks to invest in the safety of sovereign debt rather…

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