Wednesday looks to be another dramatic day for markets, with the US central bank scheduled to announce an interest rate decision at 9pm South African time. It will be US Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen’s farewell address before handing the role on to Jerome Powell on Friday. Though the US central bank is expected to hold the upper ceiling of its federal funds rate at 1.5%, the announcement has been foreshadowed with headlines such as CNBC’s "Yellen’s final meeting may bring out the hawk in her". The rand was trading at R11.95 to the dollar, R14.85 to the euro and R16.94 to the pound at 6.45am. After Tuesday’s slump — in which the JSE top 40 lost 2.16%, while both the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 indices fell 1.09% — Asian markets provided mixed signals on Wednesday morning. Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.28% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.42%, but Tokyo’s Topix index was down 0.2% and the Singapore Straits Times index was down 0.4%. The ArcelorMittal group, including ...
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