MyCURRENCY News | Week 6 2025

What we know

Last week was a week for the Rand. With the brief period of loadshedding seemingly behind us and having processed the news of the land expropriation bill, the rand was able to regain much of the ground lost the prior week. Following a high on Monday of 19.04 to the Dollar, as the week progressed, so did the Rand’s performance which led to a close of 18.39.

This is not all Rand positive however, the low of the week came after a big miss on the downside for US employment data with a final figure of 143,000 jobs added to the payroll. This is significantly down from the forecast of 170,000 and just less than half of the prior month.

Despite the weak overall figure, the Dollar did find some support in the positive average hourly earnings and unemployment figures, both printing higher than expected resulting in a smaller selloff than anticipated from an underperforming release.

In a week dominated by US employment, the other major release came in the form of an interest rate cut from the Bank of England. The BoE decreased their benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percent to a total of 4.5% following the trend set by most Central bank’s last week.

What others say

BBC – India cuts interest rates for the first time in five years

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its repo rate from 6.5% to 6.25%, in line with the expectations of many economists.”

Moneyweb – After a positive Sona, the focus is now firmly on the budget

“There were several pledges from the president that will need to be delivered through the budget.”

CNBC – How the U.S. has used tariffs throughout history — and why Trump is different, economists say

“They were primarily a way to raise revenue in the nation’s early days. Later, tariffs were largely used to restrict imports or as a bargaining chip to reduce trade barriers.”

What we think