Rand gains more than 30c on dovish US Fed
Thursday is a busy day on the economics front, with producer inflation expected to have slowed while SA is forecast to have exported about R9bn more than it imported in December
The rand rallied sharply on Wednesday night after the US central bank indicated it was not going to raise interest rates twice in 2019 as previously expected. US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell saying “the case for raising rates has weakened somewhat” helped the rand gain 2.4% from Wednesday afternoon’s R13.65/$ to R13.31/$.
The rand was trading at R13.33/$, R15.33/€, and R17.50/£ at 6.25am. When the US central bank raised its interest rates by 25 basis points in December, taking its ceiling to 2.5% and its floor to 2.25%, it indicated it intended raising the upper end of its range to 3% by the end of 2019. Powell’s statement on Wednesday night indicated this was no longer the plan, which lifted Asian markets on Thursday morning. Naspers’s dominant asset, Tencent, rose 1.16% to HK$348.20 and BHP gained 1.21% to A$35.02 in Sydney ahead of the JSE’s opening on Thursday. Naspers and BHP between them account for more than a third of the top 40 index, indicating a good day for ...
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