ZAR Forex Report – Slightly better employment figures resulting in a slightly stronger Rand

With data fairly light last week, the markets were driven mostly by politics and sentiment.

Brexit and President Trump continue to dominate the direction of markets and, locally, SONA took centre stage.

One could go so far as to say the markets were boring, although this is a good problem to have!

Disruptions were expected at SONA and again, it did not disappoint. Or it did – depending on your view point. Behind all the theatrics and, dare we say, nonsense, president Zuma’s speech did not contain much content or insight and, as such, the market hardly responded with little movement.

The ZAR opened at 13.40 last Friday morning against USD after trading in the 13.35 – 13.48 range the day before.

The only notable thing Zuma did mention was the beginning of a new chapter of transformation, however given the threat of a cabinet reshuffle, a “new chapter” would be a distant second on the worry-scale.

In global news, last week’s Chinese trade data was positive and the Trump trade kept surging as Wall Street hit another record high.

The ZAR opened stronger against the USD on Tuesday and is again drifting towards 13.20 mark, against the EUR and GBP it was trading at 14.05 and 16.57 respectively, however we are expecting another quiet week on the trading front.

The appreciation was the result of better than expected employment figures – the unemployment rate declined by 0.6% to 26.5% for the fourth quarter of 2016 as employment grew by 235 000.

 ZAR FOREX RATES

USDZAR  =  13.2213

GBPZAR  =  16.5538

EURZAR  =  14.0396

AUDZAR  =  10.1472

NZDZAR  =  9.48931

CADZAR  =  10.1299

CHFZAR  =  13.1715