{"id":113326,"date":"2016-02-19T08:33:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T06:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=113326"},"modified":"2016-02-19T08:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T06:33:39","slug":"5-important-things-to-know-before-the-jse-opens-trading-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/113326\/5-important-things-to-know-before-the-jse-opens-trading-today\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things to know before the JSE opens trading today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here is what&#8217;s happening in the markets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Responding to critics of his state of the nation address this week, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/politics\/2016\/02\/19\/zuma-makes-economy-his-new-mantra\" target=\"_blank\">president Jacob Zuma has put the South African economy at the forefront of government focus<\/a><\/strong>. This, ahead of the budget speech set to take place in the coming week. The president said that no stone would be unturned in avoiding a credit rating downgrade, while calling for unity among politicians to fight for stability, and avoid politicking at the expense of the economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/business\/2016\/02\/18\/sa-rated-one-of-the-worst-in-africa-in-terms-of-entrepreneurial-activity\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa has been ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for entrepreneurial activity, according to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report<\/a><\/strong>. While 73% of South African adults see entrepreneurship as a good career choice, only 9.2% go one to do so, blocked by red tape, lack of access to finance and the generally high cost of doing business in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed to a seven-week high against the dollar on Thursday supported by expectations of interest rate hikes, while Gold Fields fell sharply as the stock market ended a recent rally. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\" target=\"_blank\">The currency is trading stronger at R15.41 against the dollar, R22.09 against the pound and R17.14 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global news, <a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N15Y0BN?sp=true\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Asian shares slipped after hitting near three week highs on Friday<\/strong> <\/a>as a rally in oil prices reversed and investors remained cautious about the outlook for the global economy. Wall Street closed lower, ending a three day winning streak, while <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/europe-stocks-factors-idUSL8N15Y0JD\" target=\"_blank\">European markets are expected to open lower again on Friday<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0VS00Z\" target=\"_blank\">Global oil prices fell on concerns about a global oversupply, reversing several days of gains &#8211; though it remains just above $30 a barrel<\/a><\/strong>. US crude slipped 34 US cents to $30.43 a barrel, while Brent crude slipped 38 US cents to $33.90. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cefgroup.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Daily-18-02-2016.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The South African Central Energy Fund showed an over-recovery of 60-63 cents for LRP fuel<\/a><\/strong>, pointing to a drop at the pumps in March. Diesel&#8217;s under-recover extended to 13 cents, pointing to a price hike.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business\/news\/ministers-link-to-guptas-grows-deeper-1986726\" target=\"_blank\">links between mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane and the controversial Zuma-linked Gupta family are deepening<\/a><\/strong>, as it has been revealed that one of his political advisors has a business connection with the family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s happening in and affecting South African markets today (19 February 2016).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":6423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26,175],"class_list":["post-113326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-jse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113326","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=113326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113328,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113326\/revisions\/113328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}