Talk about kicking something while it’s down, the rand taking another beating at close of trading on Friday. We plunged a further 30 cents against the dollar, meaning we broke some rather unwanted ground.

A combination of brittle commodity counters and strong US economic data saw records tumble, with this below from BD Live:

The rand traded close within a fraction of R14.20/$ in the late afternoon trade, surpassing its previous low of R14.1595/$, recorded at the end of September. The rand, which closed at R13.89/$ on Thursday, fought back slightly before market close to finish at R14.16/$.

Standard Bank trader Inshaan Omar said the recent spate of data in the US, as well as rhetoric from various US Federal Reserve (Fed) speakers, was undoubtedly skewing the market for a stronger dollar on a US rate increase.

Technical analysis indicated that the domestic currency would weaken further to R14.45/$, Mr Omar said.

Well, isn’t that just grand? I guess if you have dollars you should probably hang onto them for a while, looks like it could get worse before it gets better.

Of course one place the weakening rand does look good, and there aren’t many, is if you happen to dabble in the the overseas lotto. Lump together the winnings from tomorrow’s US Mega Millions and the EuroMillions (becasue you’re an optimist and you play both) and that exchange rate will net you a cool R4 billion.

If you’re wondering what you might spend R4 billion on you could always a nab a presidential jet, although that type of excess if something you’d probably rather have the taxpayers foot the expense for.

[source:bdlive]