The rand weakened on Monday following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision not to travel to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum, opting instead to hold load-shedding crisis meetings with key stakeholders.
By 09.30 am, the rand had dropped 1.29% against the US dollar to trade at R17.065 with the local unit recovering minimally to sit at R16.95/$ at 05.00 pm.
During early trade, the local unit was at R16.75 against the greenback but the realisation of just how dire the situation is at Eskom has started to reflect in the markets.
After hitting an all-time high on Friday, the JSE All Share Index was muted as investors search for direction ahead of the release of local consumer price index numbers on Wednesday. The local bourse closed 0.21% lower at 79,168 points.
South African inflation expectations rose for the next two years, which affirmed predictions the Reserve Bank will continue its aggressive rate-hiking into 2023, reports Bloomberg.
The Reserve Bank monetary policy committee is due to meet for the first time this year next week.
The local bourse’s global peers cheered last week’s cooling inflation data out of the United States with the expectation that the Federal Reserve will slow its aggressive interest rate hikes.
At 5.00 pm, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were trading 0.71% and 0.40% higher while across the pond in Europe, France’s CAC 40 (0.35%), Germany’s DAX (0.32%), and London’s FTSE 100 (0.14%) were all higher.
Earlier, Asian markets were mixed with the Shanghai Composite (1.01%) and Hong Kong Hang Seng (0.037%) firmer while Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.14%.
