The rand reached R9,27 per dollar on Monday – a 17% improvement against the US dollar since the start of this year, and a massive 35% improvement on the record worst level of R13,86 per dollar reached on December 20, 2001.
These gains have made the rand the best performing currency against the US dollar this year in marked contrast to the South African rugby team, which suffered record losses against the French, Scots and English national rugby teams on successive Saturdays over the past three weekends.
The strength of the rand has confounded most economists, who as recently as November 11, when UK-based Consensus Economics carried out its latest monthly survey, were expecting the rand to end the year above R10,20 per dollar.
Mindful of American philosopher George Santayana’s admonishment that ”those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it”, already on January 9 this year it has to be asked whether the public perception that the rand was a one-way bet was correct?
This was because many South African exporters in 1985 failed to hedge their export receipts at a time of rand weakness, so when the rand strengthened in 1986 and 1987, their profit margins were squeezed.
But most South African exporters seem intent on repeating the mistakes of the past, as they ignored history and Grintek last week became the latest exporter to warn that earnings will be hit by the rand’s strength because they failed to put in hedges.
In January, the rand was trading at R11,30 per dollar and the public perception of selling the rand as the ”road to riches” was wrongly based on an analysis of the period 1985 to 2001. This was because the quarterly rand/dollar average in the first quarter of 1991 was stronger than that of the fourth quarter of 1985, while using producer inflation differentials, the purchasing power parity of the rand was only weaker in the fourth quarter of 2001 than it was in the fourth quarter 1985.
The public perception of the rand as a one-way bet was due to the rand moving from R3,60 per dollar on May 9, 1994, the day before Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first President, to R13,86 rand per dollar on Dec. 20, 2001.
Any recoveries, such as those in 1995, 1997 and 1999, have only been temporary and in the following year the rand continued its inexorable move to weaker levels. All the prayers (and commissions of inquiry) of the average South African and many politicians seem to have had absolutely no effect on the relentless march of the rand.
The analysis of the quarterly average shows that the rand recovered by 19,7% in the first quarter of 1986 from the fourth quarter of 1985 and its peak recovery was eight quarters later in the fourth quarter of 1987, when the rand averaged R1,9927 per dollar for a 32,8% gain from the fourth quarter 1985.
There were probably few people on January 9 who believed that the rand would be below R10 per dollar in six years time, let alone six months later, but the history of the rand shows that this is indeed possible and today the rand is trading well below R10 per dollar and heading for R9 per dollar.
The range of forecasts in the November survey of Consensus Economics was from R9,60 per dollar to R10,70 per dollar for the end of this year at a time when the rand was trading at R9,82. The range for the end of November 2003 is from R8,50 per dollar to R11,50 with a consensus of R10,51
per dollar.
As currency movements are the most difficult to predict, most banks hedge themselves against this risk by putting in stop-losses, which means the banks bail-out of their carry trade if the currency moves against them.
Only if the rand exceeds R10,80 per dollar consistently in the next year would you lose money on the carry trade, but with the US dollar weakening against other currencies as well, the likelihood of this happening is very small. – I-Net Bridge