Traders couldn\u2019t be happier to see the end of South African President Jacob Zuma\u2019s nine years in power.<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old leader had driven Wall Street to wit\u2019s end in recent years amid ratings downgrades, declining growth and a string of scandals. After surviving multiple attempts by opposition parties to oust him throughout his presidency, he agreed to step down late Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The rand rallied to its highest level since February 2015, following weeks of manoeuvres by the ruling African National Congress to remove him from office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very big relief,\u201d Shamaila Khan, director of emerging markets at Alliance Bernstein said. \u201cInstitutions had been deteriorating rapidly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuma\u2019s resignation opens the path for his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, to take the helm of Africa\u2019s most-industrialised economy. Ramaphosa may be sworn in as president on Friday, according to a schedule released by Parliament earlier.<\/p>\n
The ANC said it wants a quick transition so Ramaphosa, a 65-year-old lawyer and one of the richest black South Africans, can move to fulfill pledges to revive the struggling economy, clamp down on corruption and rebuild its image ahead of elections scheduled for mid-2019.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s five-year credit-default swaps tightened 3.5 basis points on Wednesday to 154 points\u201414 points away from the five-year low reached in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a positive development and will lead to improvements in institutions down the road,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n
While the rand had already rallied in anticipation of Zuma\u2019s resignation, a recovery in risk assets should propel the currency even higher, according to Khan.<\/p>\n
Ray Zucaro, Chief Investment Officer at RVX Asset Management in Aventura, Florida said he\u2019s willing to increase his exposure now and favours the belly of the bond curve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is kind of what I have been waiting for, to buy the nation\u2019s debt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cZuma\u2019s possible resignation has been brewing like a soup on the back burner for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erik Nelson, a currency strategist at Wells Fargo said there\u2019s been this expectation for months now that eventually he would be removed from office.<\/p>\n
\u201cOptimism had been priced in after Ramaphosa came to power and expectations for Zuma\u2019s removal climbed.There are still large challenges on the economic, fiscal, and political fronts. I wouldn\u2019t say Zuma being removed is a panacea,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nelson expects the rand to gain steadily amid dollar weakness.\u2014Bloomberg<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Traders couldn\u2019t be happier to see the end of South African President Jacob Zuma\u2019s nine years in power. The 75-year-old leader had driven Wall Street to wit\u2019s end in recent years amid ratings downgrades, declining growth and a string of scandals. After surviving multiple attempts by opposition parties to oust him throughout his presidency, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60812,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60809\/revisions\/60812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}