{"id":125511,"date":"2016-06-03T08:39:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T06:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=125511"},"modified":"2016-06-03T08:39:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T06:39:30","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/125511\/5-things-you-need-to-know-before-trading-opens-today-34\/","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:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/economy\/2016\/06\/03\/rating-decision-keeps-sa-on-edge\">Today is D-day for South Africa&#8217;s credit rating, as ratings firm Standard &amp; Poor&#8217;s is expected to deliver its verdict<\/a><\/strong>. The firm has South Africa at one notch above junk with a negative outlook, and a downgrade would mean junk status for the country &#8211; and all the economic woes it brings along with it. Finance minister Pravin Gordhan is confident the country will avoid the cut &#8211; but many economists have said that we should anticipate the worst.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/business\/financial\/2016\/06\/03\/old-mutual-points-at-unique-circumstances-for-huge-proposed-ceo-payout\">Old Mutual is getting flak for a proposal to give its CEO\u00a0Bruce Hemphill a &#8220;unique&#8221; 3-year incentive which could see him take home a bonus 1000% bigger than his salary<\/a><\/strong>. With a guaranteed salary of GBP900,000 (R20.2 million) this means he could walk off with GBP9.9 million (R222 million) as a bonus &#8211; which is raising eyebrows with shareholders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South African assets firmed on Thursday as global investors became less adverse to risk, but the rand looked vulnerable to a credit rating review from Standard &amp; Poor&#8217;s due on Friday.\u00a0Stocks recovered after skidding lower for two sessions in a row, while bonds were mixed. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Friday the Rand was trading at R15.57 to the dollar, R22.44 to the pound and R17.37 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\/idAFL8N18V0FP?sp=true\">Asian shares advanced on Friday as investors looked to US\u00a0employment data that could add to or detract <\/a><\/strong>from the case for a Federal Reserve interest rate hike this month or in July.\u00a0Wall Street closed slightly higher on Thursday as fresh data gave a rosier view of the economy and further gains for healthcare shares countered declines in energy names.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0YP03T\">Brent oil prices held around $50 a barrel on Friday\u00a0following an OPEC meeting that failed to agree on output\u00a0targets<\/a><\/strong>, but which was seen as supportive as Saudi Arabia\u00a0pledged not to flood the market with more fuel.\u00a0Brent crude oil futures held, trading at $49.99 per barrel,while US oil was trading down at $49.08.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news<\/strong>: The ANC has submitted close to 10,000 names in its 2016 elections list, while secretary general <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/06\/03\/ANC-dealing-with-political-killings-linked-to-the-selection-of-candidates\">Gwede Mantashe has doubled down on the party&#8217;s focus on the elections<\/a><\/strong>. He controversially stated that nothing should overshadow the elections in 2016, from buzz around Jacob Zuma, to talk of state capture and even political killings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting the South African markets today (3 June 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],"class_list":["post-125511","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\/125511","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=125511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125513,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125511\/revisions\/125513"}],"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=125511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}