The rand was stable on Thursday morning, but remained a lot stronger compared with a few days ago, suggesting the market may have discounted the negative news flow around the recent Cabinet reshuffle. The rand has also benefited from a weaker dollar after US President Donald Trump said he was in favour of the US Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low. The rand recovered as much as 40c to the dollar over the past 24 hours, defying expectations of further weakness after S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings stripped the country of its investment-grade status, at least on a foreign-currency basis. Two weeks ago, President Jacob Zuma sacked Pravin Gordhan as finance minister, triggering a storm of protest and credit rating downgrades, which hurt the rand. "A downgrade to junk status by at least two of the three big agencies will be a devastating blow to SA’s financial prospects, far worse than the effects of the great financial crisis of 2008,"said Brenthurst director and investment ...
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