Browsing: Coronavirus pandemic

Understanding the Oil Price Decline and Futures Markets

By Terry Adembesa, Chief Officer, Derivatives Market, Nairobi Securities Exchange

A derivative contract is an agreement to engage in a commercial transaction in which the delivery of an asset is set for the future, while the price and various specifications of the contract are agreed at the time of contract initiation. These markets originated from burgeoning oil and grain markets. In the agricultural markets, these created a need for a farmer to secure a price at one point in time, store the grain, and deliver it at a later point in time.

Despite these markets initially being dominated by agricultural commodities, globally there has been a proliferation of other financial instruments such as currencies, bonds, and stock indices. Although the commodity derivatives markets include very active contracts in oil and precious metals, financial derivatives have remained the most traded instruments in the global derivatives markets.

Types of derivatives include forward …

The East African region. It boasts of having three of the world’s ten fastest growing economies and measures that will assure the growth of the region post the coronavirus pandemic are needed. www.theexchange.africa

East Africa’s economy is tremendously dynamic and until now, it has been one of the fastest-growing sub-regions in Africa since 2013.

As of 2019, before the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, the region was expanding at more than double the continental average.

Boasting of having three of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies in 2019, the East African countries of Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania, it is now time for the region to put in place measures that will assure the growth of the region post the coronavirus pandemic.

Is Kenya abandoning trading blocs’ agreements for the US?

Despite the low per capita incomes that have prevailed for decades, the region has experienced some notable social gains including East Africans living 6.7 years longer now on average than they did a decade ago.

But even with these positive trends, the region still suffers from a number of serious vulnerabilities to its ability to sustain …

A cargo plane carrying 500,000 surgical masks from China at Belgium’s Liege Airport. Chinese billionaires are donating to Africa in droves making China look good. www.theexchange.africa

Chinese billionaires are head over heels with Africa and with donations that keep streaming in, it is just a tip of the iceberg in making China look good.

With the advent of the covid-19 coronavirus, the Chinese have been sending aid to the continent and also to countries like the US and some in Europe. Well, China has a global reputation and the pandemic has become its platform to show its kind side.

The donations started with Jack Ma, China’s richest who interestingly also opened his own Twitter account last month at the height of the covid-19 pandemic.

Ma is using his Twitter account to give prominence to his medical supplies campaign which is delivering much-needed equipment and testing kits to almost every country in the world.

Coronavirus: African leaders stuck with neglected, outdated healthcare systems

The billionaire is sending ventilators and face masks to many countries globally in the …