What’s behind the rand roller coaster?
More unusual than the rand’s recent collapse has been its resilience this year. While declining commodity prices and dollar strength have caused a dramatic correction, the rand is still likely to recover some of its strength
05 May 2022 - 05:00
In February, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the rand was trading at about R15.40/$. But the war, by catapulting commodity prices higher, lit a fire under commodity-based currencies, causing the rand to strengthen all the way to R14.47/$ at the end of March — before it came crashing back to earth in April.
Last week, as global economic uncertainty caused investors to retreat into safe-haven assets and commodity prices came off the boil, the dollar closed at 20-year highs and the rand breached R16/$ in a swift, sharp correction that has undone all its gains for the year...
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