{"id":121881,"date":"2016-04-28T07:36:32","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T05:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=121881"},"modified":"2016-04-28T07:36:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T05:36:32","slug":"5-important-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/121881\/5-important-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-3\/","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><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/world\/europe\/2016\/04\/28\/diamond-confirms-pursuit-of-barclays\">Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has confirmed that he is looking to acquire Barclays Africa (Absa)<\/a><\/strong>. Diamond&#8217;s group, Atlas Capital has formed a consortium with two other investment groups to acquire Barclays&#8217; full 62% stake in the company. Diamond could face competition from the local Public Investment Corporation and other interested parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/04\/28\/Defiant-whimper\">Only a few hundred people turned up for protests across the country calling for President Jacob Zuma to step down<\/a><\/strong>. The #ZumaMustFall march was scheduled to take place on Freedom Day, and called for a million South Africans to rise up against the president and demand his resignation. However, South Africans chose to celebrate the public holiday doing something else.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s markets were closed on Wednesday due to the public holiday. The rand closed stronger on Tuesday and remained fairly stable throughout Freedom Day, before weakening in the evening. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR&amp;view=1W\">On Thursday morning ahead of the JSE opening, the rand was trading at R14.48 to the dollar, R21.07 to the pound and R16.41 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global news,\u00a0Asian stocks edged higher on Thursday as the US Federal Reserve appeared to be\u00a0in no hurry to raise interest rates, while oil consolidated gains after hitting a\u00a02016 peak.\u00a0Meanwhile, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-economy-idUSKCN0XP0BQ\">US\u00a0economic growth likely stalled in the first quarter as domestic demand cooled and a strong dollar continued to undercut exports<\/a><\/strong>, but a pick-up in activity is anticipated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0XO01U\">Crude oil futures pulled back from 2016 highs early on Thursday as traders locked in\u00a0profits after April&#8217;s sharp rally<\/a><\/strong>, but analysts said falling US production and\u00a0strong investor appetite could push prices higher. Brent crude finished up at $47.18 a barrel, having hit a 2016 high of $47.45 earlier.\u00a0US crude\u00a0settled at $45.33 a barrel, after hitting a 2016 high at $45.62.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news<\/strong>: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/04\/28\/gordhan-not-at-briefing-delegating-him-to-meet-banks-about-guptas\">Finance minister Pravin Gordhan is reportedly unhappy about being named among three ministers<\/a><\/strong> who have been tasked to investigate why South Africa&#8217;s banks shut down the accounts of Gupta-owned businesses. The minister was not present at the meeting that decided on the probe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting the South African markets today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":52419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-121881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121881","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=121881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121883,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121881\/revisions\/121883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}