A midnight fright made the rand jump to R14.70/$
An emerging market currency ‘flash crash’ was blamed on Apple saying its Chinese sales were worse than expected
The rand, along with other emerging market currencies, suffered a midnight shock on Wednesday, which saw it jump to nearly R14.70/$ from about R14.40/$. “Currency markets were thrown into a spasm early in Asia on Thursday, with the Japanese yen surging during less-than-liquid trading hours, following weeks in which market sentiment has soured,” Dow Jones reported.
By 6.55am on Thursday morning, the rand had calmed back to R14.52/$, R16.50/€, and R18.22/£. Dow Jones said a confluence of factors were behind the emerging market currency jolt. “Japanese markets are closed for a holiday, leaving fewer institutional investors and traders to moderate any violent price swings,” the report said. But a key reason for Wednesday’s ‘flash crash’ was probably Apple, which fell 7.55% in what Nasdaq terms after-hours trade. This set a sour tone in Asian markets on Thursday morning, indicating the JSE is likely to continue its slide; it dropped 2.79% on Wednesday. Naspers’s dominant asset, Ten...
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