The Markets

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa): Kenya’s only licensed online currency-trading money manager, Standard Investment Bank, plans to add more retail investors to its forex-focused fund and grow it to $100 million this year.   In 2019, its first year, Mansa X as the fund is known, returned an average 24% and closed at $3 million, SIB Executive Director for Global Markets Nahashon Mungai said in an interview in Nairobi. That compares with returns of 18.5% for…

DAR ES SALAAM (Capital Markets in Africa): Tanzania cut its cashew nuts output forecast for this year by 22% after excessive rains pounded the East African country and destroyed some of the crops. “Due to the heavy rainfall season which started early in September especially in the coastal region, the quantity will drop to about 225,000 tons,” Agriculture Minister Japhet Hasunga said in an interview. The 2019-20 cashew harvest had been projected to climb to…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa): Not a single company registered to become a dealer on the West African country’s stock exchange in 2019, according to Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s a comedown from the record 19 brokerages accredited in 2006 before the upheaval in the banking industry and the global financial crisis caused domestic equities to tumble from all-time highs. It’s also the first time that’s happened in 19 years. “There’s a lot of…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Boris Johnson’s British government should lower its proposed minimum salary threshold of 30,000 pounds for migrants and create a new route for the most talented people who don’t have a job offer, in order to avoid worker shortages after Brexit, a group of advisers said Tuesday. The U.K. is due to leave the European Union in four days’ time and the government has promised to end free movement by EU citizens….

RABAT (Capital Markets in Africa) – Two companies are expected to go public on the Casablanca Stock Exchange this year, the Moroccan bourse’s managing director said Wednesday, in IPOs that could help revive trading and return the country to emerging market status. Karim Hajji, speaking at a conference in Marrakesh, didn’t identify the two companies. But Hamza Bennani, who heads Aradei Capital, a REIT that has property assets valued at 4 billion dirhams ($416 million), said in…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The ink drying on the phase-one U.S.-China trade deal may be good for emerging-markets generally — but it bodes ill for the rand as investors return their gaze to South Africa’s domestic challenges. The South African currency has slumped 3.6% versus the dollar this year, the worst performance among emerging-market peers after Brazil’s real, even as easing trade tensions and an improving global economy fuel demand for riskier assets. A gauge…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – No one, it seems, was able to reason with Khalifa Haftar. If the idea was for an impressive cast of big hitters to apply enough pressure to bring the 76-year-old Libyan military commander to heel, it didn’t work. On the eve of an international summit in Berlin on Sunday, Haftar followed through on months of private warnings and crippled his country’s oil supplies by shutting down half of the production….