Just before the Mining Charter was released on the eve of the June 16 weekend, the rand was hitting new highs, despite the recent downgrades to SA’s credit rating. The downgrades could not have come in a better global environment — that was the theory. "Risk-on" international investors have been pouring money into higher-yielding emerging market debt, including markets with pretty dodgy politics and questionable institutions. SA continued to look reasonably robust, despite the downgrades and the political noise, and the cash was coming into debt instruments, even if international investors weren’t willing to commit much to equities or to longer-term direct investments in new projects. But there is only so much a currency can take, even in a favourable global environment. SA’s local, "idiosyncratic" events of the past couple of weeks have done nothing for the currency, which has now gone weaker than R13 to the dollar again; before the charter it was heading for R12. If the charter di...
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