South Africa: Rand plummets to three-month low

South Africa’s rand tumbled to its weakest in three months on Thursday as emerging market currencies were hit by a wave of risk aversion as fears about global growth intensified.

By mid-morning on 3 January 2019, the rand was at ZAR 14.486 to the dollar and ZAR 18.20 to the pound.

The rand was on the backfoot following weak factory data from China on Wednesday and saw losses deepen in tandem with a majority of global currencies after Apple said sales in China and other emerging markets fell last quarter.