The South African Rand has been in recovery mode so far this week, after recently falling to a 2-year low against the USD (the general benchmark for currencies globally). More on the global factors impacting the Rand in today's market report, the table below shows the difference in return you could have achieved when buying £200,000.00 during the high and low points of the past year.
Currency Pair | % Change | Difference on £200,000 | |
---|---|---|---|
![]() | ![]() | 9.17% | ZAR 336,905 |
The financial crisis in Turkey, which is far from over has weighed on the currencies and equity markets of developing nations, as sentiment was hit drastically after there were fears surrounding Turkey’s ability to re-pay debt.
A war of words between US leader Trump and the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently erupted after an American Pastor named Andrew Brunson has been held captive for 2 years. Erdogan claims that Brunson was involved in a coup to overthrow him 2-years ago, and this is a claim that the US denies.
A number of economic sanctions have been placed on Turkey owing to this dispute, and at one stage the Turkish Lira had lost around 50% of its value vs the USD in just 2018.
This drop spooked global markets as there were concerns that Turkish institutions would be unable to pay back loans/interest to the European banks they had borrowed from, and these concerns spilt over into other emerging nations such as South Africa.
The rand fell to a two-year low vs the US Dollar as a result, but since then it’s begun recovering. Sterling is currently trading around its best levels against ZAR so far in 2018, and there have been few times since the mid-1970’s that you could get more ZAR for Pounds than now.
What takes place in the US can influence global markets, and ZAR is no different especially due to its status as an emerging market. US President Trump’s comments regarding him being ‘not thrilled’ with the Fed’s interest rates hikes resulted in a 1% gain for ZAR, so those with a ZAR requirement should pay attention to US developments.
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For more information on how future data releases could affect your currency requirement, call our trading floor on 01494 725 353 or email me here.