The Rand – 1st Quarter March 2021

The rand was mostly flat over the quarter marginally weakening 1.14% amid vaccine optimism checked by inflationary concerns. This is after the rand experienced a strong gain in the previous quarter as seen by the sharp downturn in the blue line, in the graph below (exchange rate) bringing it close to its long-term trend as indicated by the orange line. Given the uncertain economic environment that South Africa finds itself in, it is likely that the currency exchange rate will remain volatile.