Wall Street rallies but Brexit roils pound, European markets - AFP

Wall Street stanched the bleeding on Thursday, surging out of the red as oil prices stabilized and Apple recovered some losses.Investors were also heartened by word that the leaders of the United States and China were making renewed efforts to resolve their trade war ahead of planned meeting this month in Argentina.

The benchmark Dow snapped a four-day losing streak while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both added more than 1%

Asian markets up, pound struggling 

Asian markets mostly rose on Friday but fluctuated as investors weighed China-US trade speculation, while the pound struggled to recover from the previous day's Brexit bruising.

As a volatile week drew to a close, some stability emerged in the oil sector with earlier sharp losses tailing off, providing relief to regional energy firms. Hopes that the world's top two economies are making efforts to resolve their painful tariffs standoff provided support to global markets, though conflicting reports were keeping any optimism in check.

On Thursday it was reported that China had handed the US a number of trade concessions as part of a move to smooth relations ahead of a G20 summit where Donald Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Brexit chaos gives rand welcome boost - Peregrine Treasury Solutions

"The chaos created by Brexit gave the rand a welcome boost on Thursday, following a steady decline of the local unit earlier this week. 

UK Prime Minister Teresa May and her peers battled it out yesterday as she fought to save the draft Brexit deal, while many of her colleagues who initially supported Brexit resigned in protest.

If anyone thought Europe was going to give the UK an easy divorce, they were certainly mistaken.

The Brexit fiasco has set a worrying precedent for other countries that were potentially leaning towards exiting the European Union. 

With no major events taking place on the local side, the rand’s rally is rather the result of a stumbling sterling which lost 2.3% against the local unit as May gave her speech last night. As the hype around Brexit dies off, another major event that we may see impacting the rand is the South African Parliamentary approval for the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution to more expressly make room for land redistribution without compensation. 

This will be an interesting event to watch unfolding over the next few weeks, as many opposition parties and civil society organisations are arguing that proper procedure has not been followed, and that the decision should be challenged at the Constitutional Court." 

- Bianca Botes, Peregrine Treasury Solutions

Tokyo stocks fall - AFP

Tokyo stocks fell for the second straight session on Friday, weighed down by the tech sector, after shares in US chip firms plunged in after-hours trading on concern about their outlook.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 0.57% or 123.28 points to close at 21 680.34. Over the week, it lost 2.56%. The broader Topix index was down 0.59% or 9.67 points at 1 629.30, dropping 2.61% from a week ago.