MyCURRENCY News | Week 47 2025

What we know

In Monday’s commentary we mentioned that the Rand was able to break below the 17.00 round figure to the Dollar the prior week. Last week, that seemed a distant memory as the Dollar made gains on every trading day, taking the Rand all the way up to just under 17.50. The big move financialcame on Friday following stronger than expected employment figures for September that were released out of the US on Thursday

Over the past few months, the Dollar was as subdued as the Government during the shutdown. This seems to have ended last week as the Dollar index made its way back up to 100. The strength in the Dollar was evident looking at USD.ZAR trading, with the Rand weakening just under 50c, its biggest weekly loss since late July.

Thursday brought about an unusual release of US employment figures (usually released on the first Friday of the month) to catch up on missed releases. The September figures showed that 120,000 new jobs were added to the payroll compared to the 50,000 forecast. Given that prior releases fell well short of the forecast, this surprise on the upside was supportive of a stronger Dollar.

Given that we have been benefiting from a higher interest rate differential resulting from the US rate cut in October, our rate decision on Thursday to cut rates by 0.25% meant the Rand struggled to hold on to the recent gains with the comparative advantage now eroded.

Globally, we received inflation data from the Eurozone, the UK, Canada and Japan. Euro inflation remained flat while inflation in Japan was slightly higher. Canada and the UK both saw declines in the YoY figure.

What others say

BBC – G20 summit boycotted by US closes in South Africa

“The G20 summit in South Africa, a gathering of the world’s major economies, has ended with a joint declaration committing to “multilateral co-operation”.

Reuters – US, Ukraine say they have an ‘updated and refined’ peace framework, but questions remain

The United States and Ukraine said they had created an “updated and refined peace framework” to end the war with Russiathat apparently modified an earlier plan drafted by the Trump administration which Kyiv and its allies saw as too sympathetic to Moscow.

Moneyweb – A calculated cut: Sarb eases interest rates

“South Africa’s headline consumer inflation increased modestly to 3.6% year-on-year (YoY) in October from 3.4% in September, undershooting market expectations and reflecting a broadly contained inflation environment.