The good and bad news for South Africa’s rand
Bloomberg10 March 2021
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The good news for the rand is that commodity prices are hovering near an eight-year high. The bad news is that raw materials matter less for South Africa’s currency than movements in US Treasury yields.
The correlation between the Bloomberg Industrial Metals Sub-Index and the rand has weakened to 0.2, from a peak of 0.7 in February. The inverse relationship with US Treasury yields is much stronger, at almost 0.6, the most in in four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
That means the rand is more likely to weaken as Treasury yields rise than it is to strengthen as commodity prices climb. Industrial metals account for about a quarter of South Africa’s export earnings, but as US rates continue to increase, the benefit of higher prices may be eroded by lower demand for high-yielding currencies.