{"id":111321,"date":"2016-02-04T08:37:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T06:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=111321"},"modified":"2016-02-04T08:37:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T06:37:43","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-before-the-jse-opens-today-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/111321\/5-things-you-need-to-know-before-the-jse-opens-today-5\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things you need to know before the JSE opens today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here is what\u2019s happening in the markets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sharenet.co.za\/news\/South_Africa_must_admit_national_drought_crisis_to_help_farmers__Grain_SA\/d08c62096e62233b76d493f43b257512\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa needs needs to declare a national disaster to release relief funds to farmers to help them through the worst drought in over a century,<\/a><\/strong> according to Grain SA. A disaster has already been declared in five provinces as the 2016 harvest is expected to be 25% smaller than last year&#8217;s yield.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/02\/03\/Rand-slightly-weaker-eyes-US-jobs-data\" target=\"_blank\">continued to weaken on Wednesday<\/a><\/strong> as sentiment towards risky assets stayed subdued. The currency dipped to R16.27 to the dollar; however,<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/markets\/rand-slightly-stronger-stocks-led-higher-by-mining-shares\/\" target=\"_blank\"> it made a late recovery, boosted by mining shared which led stocks higher<\/a><\/strong>. On Thursday morning, the rand opened at R15.98 to the US dollar, R23.39 to the pound and R17.71 to the Euro.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N15J0KW?sp=true\" target=\"_blank\">The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) is expected to releases its business confidence index today<\/a><\/strong>. The January index showed that South Africa opened the year with its lowest rate since 1993. with continued economic pressure, the February index is not expected to be much better.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ahead of the state of the nation address, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/02\/04\/business-leaders-to-share-lunch-and-concerns-with-president\" target=\"_blank\">business leaders have met with President Jacob Zuma to discuss how the country can avert a credit rating downgrade and further stress on the economy.<\/a> <\/strong>60 business leaders from various sectors met on the backdrop of extremely low economic growth prospects &#8211; between 0.8% and 0.9% &#8211; with a looming risk of recession.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global markets,<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sharenet.co.za\/news\/Slow_Fed_rate_hike_outlook_lifts_Asia_FX_oil_fuels_ringgit\/55198a1952db3b48159d0fc275d95e65\" target=\"_blank\"> Asian shares rallied on Thursday as speculation the US Federal Reserve might opt to not raise interest rates at all<\/a><\/strong> this year hammered the dollar and sparked a huge rally in oil prices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news: <a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/111315\/how-much-money-will-zuma-pay-back-for-nkandla\/\" target=\"_blank\">Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has welcomed President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s willingness to engage on the Nkandla saga<\/a>,<\/strong> and his offer to pay back some of the money as laid out in her report on the matter. However, politicians have been less kind, with the<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/111221\/da-rejects-zumas-nkandla-offer\/\" target=\"_blank\"> DA rejecting Zuma&#8217;s play<\/a><\/strong>, and continuing its\u00a0bid to drag the president to the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is what\u2019s happening in and affecting the South African market today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":49482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,175],"class_list":["post-111321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-jse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111323,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111321\/revisions\/111323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}