Rand exchange rate

[Wolf]

And I get fully hit by the weak rand. After fighting for half a year to get the business finance I am so frustrated because the exchange rate is eating my budget up.

I wanted to make the payment 4 weeks ago already (british pounds) when everything was still perfect for me, but things are so slow and I wasn't able to because of import licenses and all this ****. Now I have to make the payment within the next 2 weeks and all I can do I just hope and pray to get better. It costs me 50.000 Rand more to buy the stock, which means I have 50 grand less for marketing. It is so frustrating

[Dave A]

Hopefully it will all be worth it in the end, Exopacific.

Here is the cause of your pain:

The flight to safety from both established and emerging markets saw R20-billion withdrawn from South Africa in September, according to Reserve Bank figures.

Figures for October are not available, last week foreigners were net sellers of equities to the value of R9,6-billion.
full story from M&G here

Ouch!

And let's remember the Rand held fairly well for most of September. October's numbers are going to be ugly

[daveob]

It's CHRISTMAS !!!!



Here's a screenshot of the Exchange Rate this morning from http://www.fin24.com/markets/Main.aspx#currencies

[Dave A]

Looks like Christmas is over already. Showing 10.06 now.

[Wolf]

Hopefully it will all be worth it in the end, Exopacific.

Here is the cause of your pain:

Ouch!

And let's remember the Rand held fairly well for most of September. October's numbers are going to be ugly

That's really bad. I hope the shock will be over soon and the rand will recover quickly, at least a bit, PLEASE!!

[Wolf]

I am checking the rate constantly, and I am saying "IT IS ENOUGH NOW"!!!

When will this stop??? I am afraid we will see numbers like 1GBP=20ZAR within the next 3 days (missing the vomitting smiley)

[daveob]

I know that I am going to have to duck when I say this, and ExoPacific, I do feel for you, but .....

what's one man's pain is another man's gain.

Imagine the following :

you have an online business, and a few month's back you got GatVol of the local red tape, taxes and hassles, so you moved your company off shore. All your online sales were credit card transactions which were processed and converted into GB£, and paid out to your GB£ bank account ( at a rate of about 1:15 ) and no tax payable on any of it.

Now the exchange rate has got better / worse ( depending on your view ) you get to use your international debit card to buy things ( new aircon for the run-about Toyota, dual screen DVD player for the kids for Christmas, etc ) at a rate of 1:18.

But yes, we do need it to get back a bit lower so we can move some more ZAR to GB£.

Just a look from a different angle.

[Dave A]

It's not so much the rate that gets to me - it's the wild range. When I put through a transaction, I just know that the bank is going to process my transaction at the worst rate of the day...

OK - the rate gets to me too..

[IanF]

I just wonder if the rand hasn't been overvalued for the past few years. When you look at all the manufacturing companies that closed down.
It is going to cause pain, the paper rep came in today and said they are planning on an increase in November and January again looking for about 30% overall. Paper is priced on import parity and a lot is not made locally anymore.
It will be interesting to see where the levels eventually settle. Interesting times.

[Dave A]

The only reasonably reliable pattern I've seen on the Rand exchange rate is that it collapses quickly and strengthens slowly

[Pap_sak]

In sports, items made in China are generally going up 25 - 30%, and that’s NOT taking into account the rand plummeting - I'm guessing we will see price rises of 40 - 50%. Right now, local is lekker!

[IanF]

In sports, items made in China are generally going up 25 - 30%, and that’s NOT taking into account the rand plummeting - I'm guessing we will see price rises of 40 - 50%. Right now, local is lekker!

What is the new level of the Rand going to be? At the moment it looks like between 10-11 to the US$!
Any crystal ball gazers here to tell us?

[Dave A]

I'm encouraged by Trevor Manuel's medium term budget policy statement (quite a good overview here).

Barring any major shocks or change in policy, I suspect the Rand will gradually strengthen as has been its habit after any major fall. My cautionary on taking that too much to heart, though, is the potential for unexpected surprises remains higher than usual at the moment.

That budget speech raises some discussion-worthy points, but that probably deserves its own thread.

[Dave A]

Seeing the Rand didn't do well yesterday, I thought that maybe my mildly optimistic view of Trevor Manuel's budget speech yesterday was too optimistic. But I see JZ was also on show, and that performance was considerably less inspiring of confidence.

[Marq]

I think we went from about R10 yesterday morning to R11 now.

The only international thing out there was JZ trying to woe (Freudian LOL) the Americans. I don't think much credence would have been given to the mini budget given the history and electioneering etc and cannot think of anything else out there that would affect it right now. If they all bounced back yesterday on the markets making the dollar stronger - perhaps the rand was left behind and we now see its true reflection once balance is found on the international dollar/euro side again.?

Doesnt seem like the international market is impressed with the new ANC head though. Perhaps some backing will be forwarded to the new opposition now and we can see a real ding dong interesting battle. I'm looking forward to that.

I can't see the rand really recovering until our elections have been settled and the zim debacle sorted out. Both without backlash and problems. mmmm.....given that........will we ever see it back again?