The Rand has fallen against the US Dollar after the US Federal Reserve revealed that it could end its third round of quantitative easing earlier than expected.
The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting held on Tuesday suggested that the Fed’s officials are growing increasingly concerned about the dangers of an even bigger balance sheet and that the US Federal Reserve could cut back on its asset purchasing programme. Such a move could signal the end to the increased levels of liquidity that have benefitted the global markets and helped commodity prices.
A possible early stoppage of the programme has caused investors to seek shelter in the safe-haven US Dollar due to concerns that such a move could lead to a damaging of the US recovery.
“The FOMC minutes have placed markets firmly in risk-off mode,” said Vivienne Taberer a fund manager at Investec Asset Management. “The Rand is not performing too badly compared to some of the Asian currencies. Eastern European markets especially, which are more closely tied to the Euro are taking a beating.”
Worse than expected economic data of the Eurozone has also led to risk-off attitude among traders a pattern that is expected to continue until the end of the week. Against the Euro the Rand has made gains.
Current ZAR Exchange Rates
The South African Rand to Euro exchange rate is currently trading at 0.0848
The South African Rand to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1118
The South African Rand to Pound Sterling exchange rate is currently trading at 0.0735
The South African Rand to Australian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1092
The South African Rand to New Zealand Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1341
The South African Rand to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1140
The South African Rand to Emirati Dirham exchange rate is currently trading at 0.4108
The South African Rand to Swiss Franc is currently trading at 0.1042
The South African Rand to Japanese Yen is currently trading at 10.4461
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