South African Rand Continues Fall on Recession Pessimism

The South African rand, which was the best performing currency in the first quarter among the 16 most traded currencies, thanks to a wave of risk appetite, fell for the third day in a row, as pessimism increases risk aversion, damping demand for high-yielding emergent markets currencies.

After a wave of international negative news that affected the South African currency last week, the rand started this session with a downgraded outlook as a report today indicated that real estate prices declined the most in 13 years the last month, and speculations that in July 9 a report will show a manufacturing contraction in May, damping demand for the South African currency, which until last week, had posted more than 20 percent gains versus the U.S. Dollar this year.

USD/ZAR traded at 8.0145 as of 19:17 GMT rising from a previous rate of 7.9214.

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