US dollar on the back foot
The US dollar is currently within reach of the 1.0600 level against the Euro. It has erased more than half the year's gains in the past couple of weeks, as the market is betting that the US Fed will temper its aggressive stance on hiking interest rates and the current speculation of the reopening of China. The currency "risk-on" sentiment, coupled with news over the weekend that President Ramaphosa is unlikely to resign, has helped the Rand strengthen and is currently trading at R17.2400. This is far from the R17.9500 that we saw at the start of the month, but still not entirely out of the woods. With little in the way of data out this week, we expect the market to have less volatility than the last couple of weeks. Still, due to the headline-grabbing nature of the Phala Phala report, any fresh news could see the Rand trading volatilely.
Commodity Update
We have seen the news on China, causing the Brent Crude price to jump to $88.00 per barrel, and we could see a further knee-jerk should more information come out of China. The limiting factor in the price could be the market pricing in a recession and the lack of demand going forward into 2023. The price of Gold has slipped on a banana peel and is currently trading at $ 1790.00 per ounce after starting the day at $ 1808.00 per ounce.
#FinancialMarkets #Covid19 #PhalaPhalaReport
