MONEY LIVE | Oil prices up as traders weigh supply and demand issues -
Oil began inching upward on Thursday after a day of losses over demand concerns linked to the Covid-19 lockdown in China.
Markets in Asia were largely up, with Japan's Nikkei 225 gaining over a percent in early trade, with brokers staying optimistic over a falling yen for a third straight day. "Fed Chair Powell and ECB President Lagarde speak at an IMF Panel, while BoE Governor Bailey speaks at a separate event later Thursday," Innes said.
Fewer consumers are focusing on home improvements as more employees are returning to offices, following the easing of lockdown restrictions and a decline in Covid-19 cases. Cashbuild, the largest retailer of building materials in South Africa, was also hit by the July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last year. Excluding the 36 stores damaged in the unrest, its revenue for the third quarter declined by 7%.
The latest inflation numbers were announced on Wednesday morning, and were slightly cooler than economists expected, with annual consumer inflation reaching 5.9% in March from 5.7% in February. The median of 13 economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey was 6.0%. KwaZulu-Natal, home to the nation’s biggest port, is the second-largest contributor to South Africa’s economy and damage caused by the worst flooding in almost three decades is expected to run into billions of rands. The impact is poised to reverberate across South Africa as the disaster also hit operations at clothing retailer Pepkor, forced Toyota to suspended production and damaged paper company Sappi’s facilities, and could see the central bank lower its 2022 economic growth forecast of 2%.
Altron announced in January that Mteto Nyati was stepping down as CEO following the end of his five-year term. As global concern over rising US interest rates sent emerging-market currencies into reverse, the rand weakened more than 2% against the dollar on Tuesday, the biggest daily decline among the asset class. Embattled sugar and property group Tongaat Hulett warned on Tuesday that its debt burden for the year to end-March increased to R6.8 billion, from R5.8 billion a year before, owing to the group's cashflow being"considerably worse" than expected.
Moody’s has upgraded Pepkor's"probability of default" rating to Ba2-PD from Ba3-PD and its National Scale Long Term Rating by four levels to Aa1.za from A2.za. The outlook on its credit ratings has been upgraded to stable from negative.In a trading update for the six months to end-March, fishing group Oceana has warned that its headline earnings will fall by between 46% and 56%.
Investors were left weighing whether attempts to lift the economy by Chinese policymakers -- who have held off cutting interest rates -- would offset Beijing's zero-Covid policies. But Hong Kong plummeted more than 2.5 percent in the first hour of trading after a four-day holiday hiatus. And the Japanese yen continued its drop against the dollar after crossing a new 20-year low Monday, reflecting the continued accommodation of Japanese monetary policy, while US policymakers move to hike interest rates.Mediclinic says patient volumes are on the rise again. And the volume growth in the year ended on 31 March pushed the hospital group's revenues higher than pre-pandemic levels.
In a trading update for the first quarter of 2022, the company said its port volumes were up 11% on the prior period, while its terminals’ drybulk volumes rose 48% . Despite lingering concerns about the US Federal Reserve's next moves to contain prices, Wall Street enjoyed a buoyant session - especially the tech-rich Nasdaq, which surged 2.0 percent.
Seoul was flat, meanwhile, as South Korea's central bank raised its key interest rate to the highest level since August 2019 to tame rising inflation."With a thicker fog of war starting to roll in and engulf the global markets again, it is another worrying setup amid the widespread bearish sentiment out there," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a note.
Both main oil contracts stayed above the $100 per barrel mark, with fears swirling about global supply constraints over the invasion of Ukraine by Russia -- a major producer of oil and gas. In the three months to February, seasonally adjusted retail trade sales increased by 3.6% compared with the previous three months.Paper and packaging producer Sappi has halted production at three of its mills in KwaZulu-Natal, due to the floods in the province that have damaged roads, warehouses, railway lines and homes."Our Saiccor, Tugela and Stanger Mills along with its export facilities at the Durban Port have been impacted.
US annual inflation hit a 40-year high in March, the same month that UK prices jumped at the fastest pace in three decades.
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