The South African rand weakened today, extending its longest decline in a year and touching the lowest level in four years, on concerns that worker strikes and falling commodity prices will hurt the nation’s economy.
Labor unrest at mines is a continuous problem in South Africa and it looks like the issue resurfaced again. It is very bad for the country’s economy as the mining sector contributes to more than a half of South African exports. Speculations about an end to the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing drove commodity prices down, hurting prospects for the export-oriented economy even more.
USD/ZAR rose from 9.3214 to 9.4009 as of 8:15 GMT today and touched the high of 9.4340 intraday.
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