After Cyril Ramaphosa secured a second term as ANC president on Monday morning, the rand strengthened more than 2% against the US dollar.
The local unit’s performance has been linked to the president in recent weeks after a Section 89 report found that there was a prima facie case for impeachment against Ramaphosa regarding the Phala Phala farm robbery scandal.
The release of that report and rumours of Ramaphosa’s imminent resignation at the beginning of the month sent markets spiralling with the rand suffering, having traded below the R17.00/$ mark before the report was released.
On Monday morning the local unit opened at R17.60 against the greenback but strengthened to R17.22 following the news Ramaphosa would be staying on as ANC leader for another five years.
The rand is currently trading at R17.30.
The JSE closed 0.51% higher with the All Share Index at 73,36o points while global peers were mixed having climbed higher during the morning session.
Traders began the last full trading week of the year cautious of further interest rate hikes from the world’s central banks in the new year.
The US Federal Reserve, Bank of England (BoE), and European Central Bank (ECB) all hiked their interest rates last week and indicated there was more to come in 2023 while there is speculation that even the dovish Bank of Japan (BoJ) will follow the trend.
The BoJ meets on Monday and Tuesday.
In other news, Tesla stock increased by over 5% at the time of writing in the US markets after CEO Elon Musk conducted a Twitter poll asking his followers whether he should step down as leader of the social media company.
The poll returned results that indicated 57.5% of voters wanted Musk to step down from his Twitter post.
