George Saravelos, global co-head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, has indicated that the rand could fall further following confirmation that the country’s economy is in recession.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Bloomberg TV<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Saravelos drew comparisons between South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and\u00a0his predecessor Jacob Zuma – who suffered the same false start nine years ago with a recession in his first six months in office.<\/p>\n However, he argued that the rand’s drop is in line with other emerging markets, and was not necessarily due to Ramaphosa’s failure to introduce reforms.<\/p>\n “I think the biggest issue that South Africa is facing is that it is being swept away with all the weakness in other emerging markets, specifically Turkey and Argentina,” he said.<\/p>\n “South Africa is one of the biggest markets for EM fund allocations.<\/p>\n “Now what you’ve had over the last two months is a series of significant\u00a0negative data surprises and that’s really sweeping up South Africa in this EM-storm. The market has not been as underweight South Africa as it has been some other markets, and what we are seeing now is an adjustment in that position.<\/p>\n “We are actually quite negative on the rand because of these exposures.<\/p>\n “We are nearly up to R15.50\/dollar which is the high for the year, but I think we could see a move through to R16\/dolla<\/strong>r – and all that would be is essentially a catch-up of what other risky EM markets have done.”<\/p>\n Worsening problem<\/strong><\/p>\n The emerging-market sell-off may have already battered South Africa\u2019s rand, but it could get worse as traders worry over a push for land reform that would have far-reaching economic consequences and is catching the attention of world leaders, according to a separate Bloomberg<\/a> <\/strong>article.<\/p>\n The currency plunged almost 10%\u00a0against the dollar in August, its worst month in more than five years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s down another 3.4%\u00a0this week after the economy fell into recession.<\/p>\n Derivatives markets are signalling even more pain to come as contagion from crises in Argentina and Turkey spreads and with traders on edge about the ruling African National Congress\u2019s plans for a constitutional amendment to permit expropriation of land without compensation.<\/p>\n Most investors agree land redistribution is crucial to address lingering inequalities between white South Africans – who own 72%\u00a0of commercial agricultural land, according to a state audit – and black citizens, almost 25 years after the apartheid system of government ended.<\/p>\n But they\u2019re concerned about a lack of details and say it could undermine property rights, deter foreign investment and lead to penalties from other countries, according to Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered.<\/p>\n “Land reform is emerging as one of the key issues and it\u2019s clear markets remain nervous,” said Razia Khan, London-based head of African research at Standard Chartered.<\/p>\n Reflecting investors\u2019 angst, the currency suddenly rallied on 28 Augustt after lawmakers announced they were withdrawing a bill on land expropriation. The surge ended barely 10 minutes later once traders realized it was a procedural move and that the constitutional change was being dealt with separately.<\/p>\n “This type of reaction might well become commonplace ahead of the 2019 general elections,” said Nema Ramkhelawan-Bhana, the head of research at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n Currency traders are bearish. The premium of options contracts to sell the rand over those to buy it in the next three months, known as the 25 Delta risk reversal, has soared to 5.59 percentage points, the highest in three years and the highest level worldwide after Turkey\u2019s lira.<\/p>\n The rand dropped 2.3%\u00a0to R15.2087 per dollar by 11:19 a.m. in Johannesburg – its weakest on a closing basis since June 2016 – after data showed the economy contracted for a second straight quarter between April and June.<\/p>\n In an extreme scenario, with wide-scale expropriation of land without compensation leading to credit-rating downgrades and debt defaults, the rand could weaken to R24 against the greenback by the end of next year<\/strong>, Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop said in a report on 3 September.<\/p>\n A best-case scenario, with land reform benefiting the poor without undermining the economy, could cause the currency to strengthen almost 50% to R7.90 per dollar,<\/strong> she said.<\/p>\n US president Donald Trump raised the prospect of South Africa being penalized when he tweeted on 23 August he\u2019d told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ‘to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures.’<\/p>\n UK\u00a0prime minister Theresa May said in Cape Town last week that while she supported land reform, officials should “bear in mind the economic and social consequences.”<\/p>\n Under Trump, the US has ramped up sanctions against emerging markets, including Russia and Turkey, with the lira buffeted after Washington raised metals tariffs early last month.<\/p>\n \u201cIt may have been a passing thought which Mr Trump has already forgotten, or it might be the beginning of a theme for him,\u201d said John Ashbourne of London-based Capital Economics.<\/p>\n “But Turkey\u2019s experience highlights that even very limited sanctions would have a big market effect.”<\/p>\n Read:\u00a0South Africa enters <\/a>recession<\/a> after GDP declines for a second quarter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" George Saravelos, global co-head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, has indicated that the rand could fall further following confirmation that the country’s economy is in recession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":114834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-269279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269279"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269311,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269279\/revisions\/269311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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