The following company announcements, scheduled economic indicators, debt and currency market moves and political events may affect African markets on Friday.
GLOBAL MARKETS Asia equities face a bumpy session on Friday after Wall Street pared early gains as optimism over a rebound in oil prices and prospects for further government stimulus were offset by stark economic data showing the toll of the coronavirus pandemic.
WORLD OIL PRICES Oil prices rose on Friday, gaining further ground as some producers like Kuwait said they would move to cut output swiftly to try to counter the evaporation in global demand for fuels caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
SOUTH AFRICA MARKETS The South African rand edged higher on Thursday as some demand for risk currencies returned to global markets and investors cashed in some of their dollar rally profits.
CORONAVIRUS Nigeria is investigating a reported sharp rise in deaths in the northern commercial city of Kano to determine if it is related to the coronavirus outbreak, health officials said on Thursday.
MARKETS The Kenyan shilling KES= was stable against the dollar on Thursday as market activity remained low due to the COVID-19 pandemic, traders said.
CORONAVIRUS/WILDLIFE Nyakato, an orphaned baby elephant at a conservation centre in Uganda, wants to play. She flaps her small ears while poking her trunk through the fence towards her keeper.
MARKETS The Ugandan shilling UGX= held steady on Thursday due to support from a mop-up of excess liquidity in the money market by the central bank.
AFRICA BONDS/CORONAVIRUS The members of the West African monetary union UEMOA plan to raise 846 billion CFA francs ($1.40 billion) on the regional debt market in response to the coronavirus crisis, lead manager UMOA-Titres said on Thursday.
POLITICS Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has said he will not be told when to leave office, a national newspaper reported on Thursday, resisting efforts to defuse a political crisis with the offer of a "dignified retirement."
VIOLENCE Fourteen members of a religious sect aiming to revive the pre-colonial Kongo kingdom died during clashes with the police and locals in western Democratic Republic of Congo, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
IMF/CORONAVIRUS The coronavirus pandemic will cause Democratic Republic of Congo's economy to contract 2.2% this year, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, as its executive board approved $363 million in financing for the country.
CORONAVIRUS President Mokgweetsi Masisi and all of Botswana's lawmakers have been released from two weeks in quarantine after testing negative for the coronavirus, a senior official said on Thursday.