Rand Tumbles in Asian Session

South Africa’s rand tumbled to a fresh record low against the U.S. dollar in erratic Asian trade on Monday, with dealers talking of Japanese sellers in a very illiquid market.

The dollar surged as much as 10.3 percent at one stage to reach 17.9950 rand and was last quoted at 17.2500, a huge move from 16.3150 late in New York on Friday.

Dealers said Japanese investors were selling rand for U.S. dollars, where there was at least some liquidity, and then exchanging those dollars for yen.

The resulting flows pushed the yen up broadly, with the dollar dropping as far as 116.70 yen from 117.27 late on Friday.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza