{"id":124709,"date":"2016-05-25T08:38:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T06:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=124709"},"modified":"2016-05-25T08:38:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T06:38:27","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/124709\/5-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-33\/","title":{"rendered":"5 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:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/05\/25\/First-on-EWN-Ive-never-been-asked-to-be-finance-minister-Molefe\">Eskom CEO Brian Molefe has told EWN that he has never been approached for the position of finance minister<\/a><\/strong>. This follows weeks of rumour and speculation that Molefe would be asked to succeed Pravin Gordhan in the role, after he was forced from the role in a political conspiracy. Molefe&#8217;s comments are the latest denial that there is any movement to get rid of Gordhan in his role as finance minister.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business\/news\/sa-weather-service-el-nino-decaying-2025837\">The South African Weather Service has given notice that the harsh El Nino, which has caused a massive drought in the country, is decaying<\/a><\/strong>. The service said that, while there is still uncertainty around the climate conditions over the next five months, the country should experience &#8220;above normal&#8221; rainfall\u00a0over the western and north-eastern parts of the country for the winter season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed on Tuesday, buoyed by positive\u00a0sentiment towards emerging markets assets, while Ascendis\u00a0Health led stocks higher after announcing European\u00a0acquisitions. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R15.62 to the dollar, R22.76 to the pound and R17.40 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global news,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL5N18L3WW\">Asian shares jumped on Wednesday, taking cues from sharp\u00a0gains in European and US markets<\/a><\/strong>, while the dollar firmed\u00a0as upbeat US home sales supported the view that the economy\u00a0may be strong enough for the Federal Reserve to raise\u00a0interest rates in coming months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0YG01R\">Oil futures pushed closer to $50 a barrel on Wednesday, with\u00a0US crude hitting its highest in over seven months<\/a><\/strong> after\u00a0industry data suggested a larger-than-expected drawdown in\u00a0US crude inventories last week.\u00a0US crude climbed 56 cents to $49.18 a barrel, while\u00a0Brent crude\u00a0rose 47 cents to $49.08 a barrel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news<\/strong>: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/05\/25\/Armys-R600-million-wound\">It cost taxpayers R600 million to keep 561\u00a0soldiers on special disciplinary leave over the past 7 years<\/a><\/strong>. The soldiers were put on leave after they stormed the Union Buildings in 2009 to protest poor wages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa&#8217;s markets today (25 May 2016)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":110385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-124709","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\/124709","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=124709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124711,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124709\/revisions\/124711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}