Rand reacts badly to Cyril Ramaphosa’s land talk, ahead of S&P rating verdict
The rand reacted badly to President Cyril Ramaphosa affirming the ANC’s expropriation without compensation policy on Friday, swinging from R12.51 to R12.82 to the dollar. Ramaphosa made his statement that "we are going to take land and when we take land we are going to take it without compensation" a week before S&P Global Ratings is scheduled to give its latest verdict on SA’s sovereign credit rating. S&P cut South African rand-denominated debt to its first tier of junk status, BB+, in November 2017. Populist rhetoric from Ramaphosa ahead of the 2019 national election raises the fear that the credit ratings agency will lower its outlook on SA from stable to negative when it releases is new report on the country on May 25. The rand was trading at R12.78 to the dollar, R15.01 to the euro and R17.16 to the pound at 7am on Monday morning. Monday is a busy day on the JSE results front, with Barloworld, Pioneer Foods, Reinet and several property companies scheduled to release results. Ba...
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