South Africa’s rand hit R18 to the US dollar on Tuesday morning, its weakest level in almost three months.
The rand is down nearly 3% over the last week, most of the losses following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential race last week.
On Monday alone, the local currency weakened around 2%.
Trump’s big win against the Democratic Party’s Kamala Harris has seen a resurgent dollar against emerging market currencies and stronger US markets.
Besides a weaker rand, the JSE closed lower both on Friday and Monday and is down over 1.6% over the past week. Last Tuesday, the JSE’s All Share Index (Alsi) closed at 86 642 points and had fallen to 84 772 by yesterday’s close (Monday).
On Tuesday, the Alsi weakened further by around 0.75% in early morning trade, and could test the 84 000-points mark.
US markets are “mostly higher … driven by optimism for pro-business policies following Trump’s win, along with expectations of tax cuts and deregulation,” Anchor Capital says in a note.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency Bitcoin surged towards a record, almost hitting the $90 000 mark on Tuesday morning. – moneyweb.co.za
