South Africa\u2019s rand strengthened below R16.00 per dollar, erasing its Iran war losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rand, often seen as a proxy for developing-nation assets, gained 0.8% to R16 per dollar as the greenback weakened to a three-month low after the US Treasury announced debt buybacks to push yields lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa\u2019s currency slumped to a four-month low in March as the Middle East conflict drove oil prices higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It clawed back some losses before losing ground again in July after the South African Reserve Bank held back on raising interest rates in a surprise decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rand was trading around R16.10\/$ on Thursday (20 August), down from R16.25\/$ earlier in the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It strengthened in early trade on Friday, hitting R16.05\/$ as the dollar weakened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Investec Chief Economist, Annabel Bishop, the rand has been boosted by the release of the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FOMC minutes showed that the US Fed views the inflation outlook in the world\u2019s largest economy as highly uncertain, with risks to the upside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This led to the Fed holding US interest rates in July, with the prospect of future rate hikes waning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This, in turn, weakened the dollar, boosting the rand\u00a0and other emerging-market currencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith the FOMC minutes positioning a less hawkish stance than previously, and with a large, detailed quantity of information\u2026financial markets [became more] risk-on,” Bishop said in a note on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Bloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rand has strengthened to below the 16-per-dollar mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":861056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2090788520784711685","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2182578375895895","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[4068,3670,2924,853],"class_list":["post-871544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-dollar","tag-rand","tag-reserve-bank","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871544","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871544"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871548,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871544\/revisions\/871548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}