The clearest signal this week did not come from an index but from the commodity tape: Brent crude fell 6.8% over the week to $72.6 a barrel, unwinding part of the geopolitical premium tied to Hormuz, while gold rose 1.5% to $4,091.4 an ounce and platinum gained 2.8% to $1,646.3. For African equities, that mix created a sharp fault line: pressure on oil-linked names in Lagos, support for miners and PGM producers in Johannesburg, and more indirect currency-driven effects in Casablanca, Tunis, Abidjan, Cairo and Nairobi.
Key figures
- Brent: $72.6/bbl, down 3.5% on the day and 6.8% on the week
- Gold: $4,091.4/oz, up 1.5% on the week
- Platinum: $1,646.3/oz, up 2.8% on the week
- USD/ZAR: 16.4628, down 0.61%
- USD/NGN: 1,377.96, up 0.32%
African stock markets today: commodities, not domestic headlines, set the tone
This week’s African stock markets today story was defined by regional divergence. Johannesburg had the strongest commodity tailwind, with gold, platinum and palladium all higher and the palladium price up 3.0% to $1,215.5. Lagos faced the opposite problem: weaker oil prices at a time when the naira slipped 0.32% to 1,377.96 per dollar, complicating the earnings outlook for upstream, downstream and power-linked names.