By Rafiq Raji, PhD
Twitter: @DrRafiqRaji
Global Markets
- Stocks recover but anxiety over trade talks lingers
- S&P 500 futures almost flat after 1.3% fall earlier
- NYT says Trump to concede on Huawei
- China’s Liu to cut short his visit to Washington – SCMP
- Sterling dogged by Brexit worries, Turkish lira slumps
Oil Markets
- Oil prices fall as hopes for US-China trade progress wilt
- Brent, WTI futures down 0.2%
- High-level talks begin on Thur, no progress seen in early contact
- US weekly crude stocks rise by 2.9 mln bbls last week – EIA
- Brent down 0.2% at $58.21 a barrel (0354GMT)
- WTI down 0.2% at $52.48
Precious metals
- Gold at 1-wk high as trade talk hopes fade
- Spot gold rose 0.4% at $1,511.24/oz. (0049GMT)
- US gold futures up 0.3% at $1,516.50
Grains
- Soybeans ease from 3-mth top, Chinese buying limits losses
- Wheat futures up 0.1% at $5.00-3/4 per bushel (0052GMT)
- Corn futures down 0.3% at $3.93-1/4 per bushel
- Soy futures down 0.2% at $9.21-1/2 per bushel
- Rice futures nearly unchanged at $12.0 per hundredweight
Key African events or data releases today
[Posts & comments at my Twitter handle @DrRafiqRaji]
- South Africa manufacturing production Aug-19 [fcst. -0.8% yy, prev. -1.1%]
- South Africa mining production Aug-19 [fcst. 1.9% yy, prev. 2.4%]
- South Africa’s Ramaphosa to answer questions in NCOP
- South Africa state capture inquiry continues
Key African events or data releases yesterday & early a.m today
[Posted & commented on some headlines below at my Twitter handle @DrRafiqRaji]
- Spies hacked Moroccan activists amid crackdown on protests – researchers
- World Bank sees Egypt economy growing 5.8% in 2019/20
- Libya’s Ras Lanuf polyethylene plant resumes production
- Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party Ennahda to lead fractured new parliament
- Libya state oil firm pays salaries for eastern unit with parallel board
- Egypt, Iraq discuss Syria after Turkish offensive – Egypt state TV
- Ennahda came first in Tunisia parliamentary election
- Ethiopia’s peacemaking prime minister emerges as a Nobel favourite
- Tunisia presidential candidate freed days before election
- Morocco reshuffles cabinet, keeps foreign & finance ministers
- Africa Oil – Bonny Light force majeure lifted, Angolan oil discounted
- Somalia auditor general slams govt finances
- Senegal pushes oil licensing round back
- South African rand firms on improved sentiment, stocks down
- Egypt calls emergency Arab meeting over Turkish offensive into Syria – ministry
- IMF sees higher Nigeria inflation in 2020 on minimum wage, tax rises
- Egypt denounces Ethiopia for moving ahead with Nile dam amid water shortage fears
- Inflation-hit Zimbabwe public workers seek US dollar-indexed pay
- South Sudan to launch auction of licences for 8 oil fields
- Egypt dollar bonds fall in anticipation of new supply
- Nigeria lands higher oil output target in OPEC+ cut deal
- World Bank cuts Sub-Saharan Africa’s 2019, 2020 growth forecast
- Shell lifts force majeure on Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude
- Senegal delays oil licensing round by a month
- Zimbabwe quadruples electricity prices, pummelling impoverished consumers
- Angola seeks to reduce gas flaring to capture revenue
- South Africa’s Sept business confidence recovers from 34-yr low – SACCI
- South Sudan sees oil production reaching 200k barrels per day by 2021
- Kenya shilling strengthens against the dollar
- Zambia’s KCM smelter shut down earlier than planned after leak – liquidator
- South Africa’s rand pauses slide as risk clouds gather
- Zimnbabwe hikes average electricity tariff by 320% – energy regulator
N.B. Full stories of above headlines are available on Reuters