My colleagues at Business Monitor International tell me that oil production will be a defining feature of the Ghanaian growth story over the medium-to-long term. In fact, they forecast that over the coming years, growth will be in the double digits and the deficits on the current account and fiscal account will be wiped out. [Read more...]

As the rally in the more common emerging market assets starts to look shaky, I see a number of reasons to like what’s on offer in frontier markets, Africa in particular. To my mind, the two assets that really stand out are Nigerian equities, and the Ugandan shilling.

In the case of Nigerian stocks, I see [Read more...]

Nigeria’s main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, has announced a 60-day ceasefire in a bid to kick start talks with the government. Albeit a fragile truce, the news should provide a boost for the government’s bolder stance on a host of political and economic policies, not least on the [Read more...]

It seems like every other little hiccup in the price of oil is blamed on sabotage in the Niger Delta. The region produces 1.5-2.5mn barrels of oil per day, depending on how active the militant activity in the region is at any given time. At the end of June however, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua (local [Read more...]

Commodity markets have been posting losses for several days now, with the CRB Index declining for most part of this week. The index declined from approximately 250, to a low of 231 yesterday, before bouncing slightly to 233. Weighing down on the CRB has been oil, (which has approximately a 30% weighting in the index). [Read more...]

Several months into the rally, how much more room is there for global markets to climb? Terry Alexander, head of Country Risk at Business Monitor International, makes the case for a sustained rally given the technical picture. Careful about the fundamentals, though!

Appendix 1

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="378" caption="Dow Jones Index & Fibonacci retracement"][/caption]

Appendix 2

[caption id="" align="alignnone" [Read more...]

The first in a series of podcasts looking at the implications of Chinese credit line extensions to emerging markets, in return for resources. This podcast focuses on the role of the recent inventory build up and future oil supply procurement by Chinese firms on global commodity markets.