The past week has been particularly volatile for South Africa with a tumbling Rand, cabinet reshuffle and Covid woes, setting up a stellar commodity price boost.

The rand sustained one of its most severe weekly losses for the year so far, caught in a perfect storm of both local and global developments.

(Partner Content) The Dollar and Pound end the week on a high.

(Partner Content) Rand loses steam as South Africa is gripped by its third wave of COVID-19.

(Partner Content) South Africa’s COVID-19 cases are still on the rise.

(Partner Content) The Rand lost most of its gains made prior to Monday, 13 April after a surprise rate cut by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). Risk sentiment changed from on to off as tension between Donald Trump and state governors rose.

(Partner Content) The rand showed some recovery over the past week at the back of hitting a historical low of R19.34 against the Dollar on Monday 6 April.

(Partner Content) Only one week after Moody’s downgraded South Africa to junk, Fitch downgraded the country further, sending the rand into new lows against the dollar late on Friday night and going even lower in the early hours of Monday morning.

(Partner Content) Until Friday last week, Moody’s was the last rating agency to rate South Africa as investment grade, but they have since made the decision to cut South Africa’s sovereign debt rating to junk status. Moody’s stated that the downgrade is due to the deterioration in South Africa’s fiscal strength and weak growth.

(Partner Content) Last night, Cyril Ramaphosa announced that a nationwide lockdown is set to commence from Thursday night at midnight for 21 days ending at midnight on 16 April.

(Partner Content) Last week Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. The announcement caused volatility among all markets, which led to risk-off sentiment and a drop in the Rand’s value.

(Partner Content) The rand continued to weaken last week after the fourth quarter of last year’s GDP growth rate was released, and took another knock after the confirmation of coronavirus cases in South Africa.

(Partner Content) A significant decline in the value of the Rand was seen after Tito Mboweni presented the budget speech – the weakest the Rand has been in almost four years.

(Partner Content) The market has been walking on eggshells since the beginning of 2020, starting off with the US drone strike in Iraq, followed by the outbreak of the coronavirus in China. When big news headlines pop up, the market moves drastically, be it up or down.

(Partner content) This past week saw the State of the Nation Address (SONA) affect the markets.

(Partner content) The rand tumbled towards the end of last week amid a strengthening dollar, increased fleeing from emerging market currencies and weaker-than-expected business confidence.

(Partner content) Over the past week, we’ve seen the market do a total turnaround to a risk-off mentality due to the coronavirus.

(Partner content) The overall negative outlook of emerging markets (EM) and the excessive expenditure over the holiday season in South Africa, have created a unique and dangerous economic outlook.

The week began with the Rand trading in a tight range as the currency markets seem less than enthused by last week’s State of the Nation Address.

The past week saw the ZAR strengthen and then reverse all gains against the US Dollar and the British Pound.

The Rand firmed against the Dollar in early trade on Monday.

The Rand rallied last week after the South African Reserve Bank raised interest rates.

October has been characterised by a rough and rocky road for the rand. Here’s the breakdown of the good, bad and the ugly from the last month.

Amidst an economic recession, high unemployment, political uncertainty and credit rating downgrades; the Rand to continued its recent counterintuitive behaviour by producing surprising strength early last week.

The spotlight is on Greece this week as it heads for debt default and a possible exit from the Eurozone.