Market Watch

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Commodity investors embark on an intriguing earnings season this week amid conflicting signals. Raw materials just hit a two-year high — aided by a weaker dollar, hopes for more U.S. stimulus, and gains in food prices — but signs from around the globe suggest the pandemic is worsening. Aluminum giant Alcoa Corp. is among companies in the vanguard, along with major oil-service player Schlumberger Ltd. Top banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Sentiment in South Africa’s services sector fell to a record low in the second quarter, providing further evidence that the economy probably suffered a historic decline in that period. A quarterly index measuring confidence in the sector fell to 7 from 17 in the three months through March, the Bureau for Economic Research said in an emailed statement Tuesday. That’s the lowest reading in the 15-year history of the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa): Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues have long recognized that some of the post-crisis rules that make the banking system safer also could end up making the financial markets more brittle. That’s a risk that was highlighted by last year’s turmoil in the money markets and was flagged as far back as 2014 — at a Fed board meeting that approved tough liquidity requirements to make banks more secure and which Powell…

GABON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Gabon, one of the lowest-rated sovereigns in Africa, sold the first Eurobonds from the continent this year, with investors snapping up the high-yielding debt even as concerns over the outbreak of the coronavirus continued to weigh on global markets. The government issued $1 billion of 10-year securities with a yield of 6.625%, at the lower end of the final price guidance and well below the initial price target of 7%, according…

GABON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Gabon is starting investor meetings Monday for a planned Eurobond sale that will test demand for hard-currency debt from one of the lowest-rated issuers in the region. The sale comes amid record debt sales by emerging-market borrowers this year as a lull in trade tensions and a rally in U.S. Treasuries spur demand for higher-yielding assets. Average yields on Eurobonds from sub-Saharan Africa are 2.5 percentage points higher than the emerging-market average, promising potentially juicy…