Rand calmer on Friday morning
The local currency managed to claw its way back under R16/€ and R18/£ on Friday morning, but remained over R14/$ following Thursday’s slide
After weakening back over R14/$, R16/€ and R18/£ on Thursday, the rand managed to claw its way to R15.97/€ and R17.94/£ by 7am on Friday morning. But it failed to get back into the 13s against the dollar, settling at about R14.05/$ after weakening to R14.21/$ from R13.83/$ on Thursday.
Thursday’s weakening of the rand was generally blamed on SA’s third-quarter current account deficit coming in at R176.6bn, a deterioration from R167.4bn in the second quarter. Peregrine corporate treasury manager Bianca Botes said in a note e-mailed on Thursday night that the “soft” current account figure added to the gloomy outlook on the rand already created by load-shedding and its potential effect on economic growth in 2019 along with parliamentary approval to amend section 25 of the constitution to open the way for land expropriation without compensation. “Since SA, along with other emerging markets, has high debt which is mostly foreign denominated, the ability to service this foreign debt...
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