Despite their transformative potential, EM digital payments shares have been struggling since February. e-finance is profitable, but its margins could come under pressure as competition intensifies. But MTN Group will retain a majority shareholding, ...
Just as domestic lockdowns were receding and international travel was re-opening, the Omicron Covid variant hit, reversing performance across most equity markets in developed (DM), emerging (EM) and frontier (FM) markets, and across most commodities....
Sri Lankan eurobonds have fallen sharply in November amid plummeting reserves, an inadequate policy response, and a broader EM selloff (with the EMBI falling 2.6% in total return terms in the past three weeks). In our base case, the recovery value wo...
OPEC+ stuck to its output increase plan on 2 December but with the proviso that it could immediately react to a significant hit to demand from the Omicron Covid variant. An oil price of cUS$70 (Brent), close to the year-to-date average, approximately...
In our previous report, we looked at the high appetite of individuals in emerging markets for cryptocurrency. Remittances are one of the key reasons for cryptocurrency adoption in some markets (eg Venezuela). Africa is the smallest region, with a mer...
The latest UN FAO World Food Price index (published on 2 December) showed a continuation of food inflation: up 1% mom, up 27% yoy and up 47% from the May 2020 trough. The silver lining is the deceleration in the pace of the increase (in October, the ...
The investment and financial pledges made by China to Africa in the triennial FOCAC, concluded on 30 November, amount to US$40bn, according to our understanding of the post-forum action plan, and this equates to a drop of one third from the pledges m...
The government of Belize announced last month (5 November) that it had redeemed the much-maligned Superbond (the 4.9375% 2034s), after securing the necessary financing to complete a cash tender offer for the bond. TNC and DFC announced financial clos...
A key to making happen this was reducing perceived political risk so that investors could accept the additional constraint of local content requirements. Although the ECT was always designed to support oil and gas investment, you would not know it fr...
The current price of Tin futures is US$30,233 per 5 tonnes. Our ML model forecasts a further appreciation of 18% over the next 12-months, targeting a break of the significant 2011 high at US$33,500; however, the next few months could see a retracemen...
