JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The South African rand fell on Monday, as the U.S. dollar climbed to a two-decade high and as struggling utility Eskom resumed scheduled power cuts.
At 1520 GMT, the rand traded at 16.2350 against the dollar, 1.4% weaker than its previous close.
The latest leg of the dollar’s rise began after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points last week, hitting currencies worldwide.
A stronger dollar makes high-yielding but riskier assets like the rand less attractive to investors.
State-owned Eskom said it would implement “Stage 2” scheduled power outages from 1700 local time to 2200 (1500 GMT to 2000 GMT) on Monday, after generation units at several coal plants tripped, adding to constraints caused by delays in returning units to service.
The outages are a major brake on economic growth.
Domestic data releases this week include March mining and manufacturing numbers, which are due on Thursday and will give added insights into the state of the economy in the first quarter.
On the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Top-40 index closed down 1.84% and the All-share index down 1.78%.
Government bonds also weakened, with the yield on the instrument due in 2030 rising 11.5 basis points to 10.205%.
(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Alexander Winning; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
