Bianca Botes, Corporate Treasury Manager at Peregrine Treasury says today should see a quiet day for the rand, with a range of R14.30 to R14.68 expected.

"A potential US government shut down, President Trump threatening to fire the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and US politics in general are adding some pressure to the USD, assisting the rand in a slight rebound following a rather messy Friday. 

"The rand managed to claw back 0.7% in early trade on Monday morning after losing nearly 1.5% on Friday afternoon amidst a broad-based derisking by investors as we head towards the end of 2018. 

"We believe the weakening of the rand is somewhat overdone and it should recover back to the R14.30s."

By 10:15, the rand was trading at R14.54 to the greenback.

Following a wild ride on Friday which saw the rand yo-yoing between the R14.30 and R14.50 level, there could be a rough time ahead in the markets. The rand opened the day at R14.52 to the greenback and was trading at R14.59 at 08:47.

TreasuryONE said in a morning note to clients,"The rand was yo-yoing on Friday, as it traded wildly between the R14.30 and R14.50 level, due to EM sell-off on the negative side and a weaker than expected GDP number out of the US on the rand positive side. 

"However, the slide in equities overshadowed the GDP number in evening trade as both the Dow Jones and S&P indexes got hammered, this caused the rand to lose close to 30 cents in evening trade.

"The fact that the market is moving out of riskier assets does not bode well for the Rand and should the current trend continue, we could be in for a rough time in Emerging Markets. Looking at commodities Gold is trading above $1260 which is evidence of the safe haven play, while Oil had another bad day closing close to $50 per barrel."