The Markets

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) — After one of the most difficult years in the oil industry’s history, crude prices have recovered and major producers are finally generating spare cash. Investors really want to get their hands on it, but most are likely to be disappointed. That’s because the pandemic has created a legacy of debt for the world’s biggest international oil companies, many of which borrowed to fund their dividends as prices crashed. For Exxon…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. is preparing to offer a Bitcoin fund to wealthy clients, the latest sign that Wall Street is warming to the largest cryptocurrency after it soared in recent months. The actively managed fund will be available as soon as this summer, CoinDesk reported Monday, citing sources familiar with the plans. NYDIG will be the custody provider, a person with knowledge of the situation said, asking…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) — French energy giant Total SE suspended its $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique indefinitely due to an escalation of violence in the area, including a March attack by Islamic State-linked militants. The decision is a blow to Total, which bought an operating stake in the project for $3.9 billion in 2019, hoping to start exporting the super-chilled fuel by the end of 2024. The first phase of…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Nigerians have been accumulating foreign currencies to protect their wealth from naira volatility and surging inflation, according to a research paper in a journal published by the Central Bank of Nigeria. “Higher real-exchange rate volatility is associated with an increased level of currency substitution,” central bank economists including Isaiah Ajibola, Sylvanus Udoette, Rabia Muhammad and John Anigwe said in the paper available on the central bank’s website. There is…

LAGOS(Capital Markets in Africa) — A $1,000 invested in dogecoin at the start of the year would be worth over $68,500, based on MarketWatch’s calculation. It’s the day of the doge. At least, that’s how proponents of dogecoin have deemed April 20. Staunch supporters of dogecoin , which was created as a parody coin, a lighthearted rival to bitcoin, are aiming to push the value of the surging crypto to $1 on Tuesday, which has…

LAGOS(Capital Markets in Africa) — As if the struggle to secure its meager supplies of Covid-19 vaccines wasn’t bad enough, Africa is now having a hard time getting people to take them. Only 5.22 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have been vaccinated, a region with a population of about a billion. From suspicions about Chinese-made vaccines in Zimbabwe and conspiracy theories in Ivory Coast about Covid-19 being “a planned event by foreign actors” to Somalia, where the Islamist…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Wall Street bears battered by the Reddit crowd earlier this year have yet to regain their gumption, even with stocks at records and valuations near two-decade highs. The median short interest in members of the S&P 500 sits at just 1.6% of market value, near a 17-year low, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In Europe, a short-covering frenzy has sent bearish bets collapsing like never before in Morgan…