{"id":114162,"date":"2016-02-25T08:31:07","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T06:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=114162"},"modified":"2016-02-25T08:31:07","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T06:31:07","slug":"5-important-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/114162\/5-important-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-2\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things you need to know before trading opens today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in the markets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan&#8217;s budget speech <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-02-24\/gordhan-taxes-wealthy-cuts-jobs-to-curb-south-african-budget\" target=\"_blank\">failed to set investors&#8217; worlds on fire<\/a><\/strong>, with many of the expected &#8220;big&#8221; measures to drag the economy out of the mire skipped over. Gordhan told parliament that tax hikes should help raise an additional R18.1 billion rand in revenue in 2016\/17, but there was<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sharenet.co.za\/news\/Austere_South_African_budget_fails_to_reassure_investors\/2dbddf7af066e4a392a37e3a132a9370\" target=\"_blank\">little else to show goverment was willing to make tough calls to save the economy<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>See also:\u00a0<a title=\"Permalink to The 2016 SA budget in a nutshell\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/114048\/here-is-the-2016-budget-in-a-nutshell\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The 2016 SA budget in a nutshell<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Budget\/recession-risk-still-a-reality-expert-20160225\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa is still at risk of hitting a recession<\/a><\/strong>, despite the measures announced by Gordhan in his budget speech. According to experts the speech failed to address the oversold, undervalued rand &#8211; and ratings agencies, while happy with the tax hikes, say not enough was done to address growth. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/02\/25\/belt-tightening-only-the-first-step-says-gordhan\" target=\"_blank\">The country sits with a negative outlook at agencies, with at least one threatening to cut the country&#8217;s credit rating to junk status<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand, meanwhile, slipped sharply after Gordhan cut his 2016 growth forecast to 0.9%, down from a previous forecast of 1.7%, citing a recent drought. The currency hit R16.20 to the dollar in overnight trade in New York, but on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR&amp;view=1W\" target=\"_blank\">Thursday is trading at R15.60 to the dollar, R21.71 to the pound and R17.19 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global markets, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-markets-idUSKCN0VY01K\" target=\"_blank\">volatile oil futures caused Asian shares to slip on Thursday as a fragile recovery in crude oil unravelled<\/a><\/strong>. This revived anxiety about the health of the global economy, as Chinese shares skidded. US stocks mounted a late-session rally to close higher on Wednesday after an increase in oil prices helped reduce investors&#8217; fears about banks&#8217; vulnerability to energy companies struggling to pay their debts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Crude prices dipped on Thursday as strong US gasoline demand failed to counter downward pressure from global overproduction that has left storage facilities swelling with unsold oil. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0VW03S\" target=\"_blank\">US crude is sitting ar $31.99 a barrel, while Brent crude is at $34.17 a barrel<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news:<\/strong> Students from North West University have been <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/nwu-students-adviced-to-leave-campus-immediately-20160224\" target=\"_blank\">advised to leave campus, as classes have been suspended indefinitely after buildings were torched by students<\/a><\/strong>. Violence erupted at the university&#8217;s Mahikeng campus on Wednesday as <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/114136\/violence-breaks-out-at-north-west-university\/\" target=\"_blank\">protesting students clashed with campus security, which left several people injured<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is what is happening in and affecting the South African markets today (25 February 2016)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26,175],"class_list":["post-114162","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\/114162","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=114162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114164,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114162\/revisions\/114164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}