USD/ZAR rallies 2% to 15.25 as South Africa slips into recession

The US dollar accelerated its upward momentum across the Emerging Markets (EM) currencies, driving the USD/ZAR back towards the multi-month tops of 15.48 reached last month.

The renewed sell-off in the Rand is also triggered after the South African GDP report showed that the African economy entered recession for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). South Africa's Q2 GDP rate contracted by 0.7% q/q, missing expectations of a 0.6% q/q growth by a big margin.

At the press time, USD/ZAR is up +2.23% to trade at three-week tops of 15.2462. The Rand leads the sell-off across its EM peers, with the Lira down 1%, INR losing 0.50% and Indonesian Rupiah down 0.45%.