Latest news with #USDZAR
Mail & Guardian
25-07-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Discover how AI-Powered analytics are revolutionising retail Forex Trading in 2025
The foreign-exchange market has always rewarded traders who can process information faster than the competition. In 2025, that advantage increasingly belongs to those who deploy artificial-intelligence-driven analytics. South African retail traders, once limited to basic charting packages and delayed economic calendars, now enjoy real-time pattern detection, sentiment scoring, and predictive order-flow models piped straight into their trading dashboards. What was once the preserve of hedge-fund quants is being delivered through cloud-first platforms that cost less per month than a Saturday braai with friends. Platforms such as The traditional technical-analysis toolkit still matters, but AI augments it in ways that speak directly to the needs of a retail audience. Deep-learning models trained on decades of market microstructure spot hidden liquidity pockets long before conventional indicators flash. Natural-language-processing engines scan every Monetary Policy Committee briefing out of Pretoria and every Treasury press release, tagging each sentence with a probability that it will move USD ZAR by more than 0.5 %. These probabilities appear as colour-coded prompts beside a trader's chart, trimming hours from the research cycle and reducing the urge to trade on gut feeling alone. South Africa boasts the largest, most liquid Predictive order-book heatmaps draw on Level-II data from Johannesburg-hosted servers, showing where institutional bots are clustering liquidity. Sentiment fusion models combine Twitter, YouTube, and local news feeds to score public mood about the rand, gold prices, and the broader BRICS narrative. Reinforcement-learning trade managers adjust stop-loss and take-profit levels dynamically, factoring in S&P 500 futures, Bitcoin momentum, and commodity index volatility. Voice-activated assistants let traders ask, 'What is the probability of a USD ZAR rally if Brent crude jumps three per cent?' and receive an instant, data-backed answer. These tools lower the knowledge barrier for beginners while giving veterans sharper edges for prop-firm assessments. AI is not merely about finding entries; it transforms risk control, too. Value-at-risk models that once refreshed daily now recalculate every minute, pulling live volatility surfaces from interbank venues. When sudden rand weakness lifts the three-month implied volatility curve, the smart system can automatically cut leverage on open positions or recommend a counter-correlated hedge in AUD USD. For South Africans trading from their phones between meetings, this auto-adjustment is a lifeline, preventing small mistakes from compounding into blown accounts. Moreover, AI exposes hidden correlations that local traders may overlook. In 2024, an unscheduled power-station outage in Mpumalanga coincided with a spike in inland coal prices, which in turn pressured mining-linked equities and dragged the rand lower. An AI engine that maps energy supply data to currency performance could have pre-emptively reduced exposure hours before the sell-off became obvious on charts. Looking toward the second half of 2025, three trends are set to intensify. First, edge computing under the POPIA framework will keep more personal data within South Africa's borders while still feeding anonymised trade statistics to global AI clouds, balancing privacy and performance. Second, generative AI agents will start running full back-tests and generating narrative reports that explain their logic in plain English, helping traders satisfy both compliance and client-reporting requirements without manual spreadsheets. Third, broker-agnostic neural APIs will allow savvy coders to plug AI signals directly into MT5 or cTrader, opening the door to semi-autonomous portfolios that self-rebalance based on volatility clustering instead of fixed time intervals. For retail traders, the message is clear: mastering the basics of forex remains essential, but harnessing AI analytics is quickly becoming the decisive differentiator. Those who embrace the new tools stand to capture moves earlier, size positions more intelligently, and protect capital during South Africa's trademark bouts of volatility. Traders who ignore the shift risk being outpaced by algorithms that never sleep. In a market where milliseconds matter and global flows can spin the rand from calm to chaos before dawn breaks over Table Mountain, AI-powered analytics offer a competitive edge that is both accessible and increasingly indispensable. Whether you are a newcomer placing your first micro-lot or an experienced day-trader aiming for consistent withdrawals in 2025, integrating intelligent datafeeds into your strategy could be the upgrade that turns potential into real, measurable performance.
IOL News
26-05-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Interest rates in flux: property expert discusses potential outcomes amid uncertainty
All eyes will be on the South African Reserve Bank's (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee's decision on where it leaves the interest rates this week. Image: Bongani Shilubane/ Independent Newspapers. The outcome of Thursday's Monetary Policy Committee meeting could go either way in these uncertain times. Bradd Bendall, National Head of Sales at BetterBond, said while recent global and local economic indicators might suggest that there is room for a much-needed rate cut, the South African Reserve Bank's decision remains difficult to call. 'However, we are optimistic that the Reserve Bank will take a bold stance to lower the prime lending rate by at least 25 bps. It seems like the right time to adopt a more accommodating approach. "Inflation has been trending downwards since last year, and the US's pause on tariff measures has returned some stability to global markets. We have seen the Bank of England and the European Central Bank drop their respective repo rates by 25 bps, and we expect South Africa to follow suit,' Bendall said. He said that if the rate does drop, it will only be the second cut this year. The shift will certainly bring welcome relief to homeowners and consumers grappling with higher living expenses and fuel tax hikes, he added. BetterBond said its home loan applications have increased by 2.2% year on year, according to their May data, signalling a recovery in home buying activity after a period of stagnation. It said any further rate cuts will go a long way to boosting the housing market. 'At a time when the world is holding its breath amid global monetary policy shifts, a drop in the prime lending rate would send a strong signal that South Africa prioritises economic growth and market stability.' Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ On Monday morning, Reezwana Sumad, research analyst at Nedbank CIB, said the final session of last week saw the USDZAR trading at R17.93 at the open. 'Overall, the local unit posted steady gains. After having had a brief foray towards the R18 00 level, it ended the session trading at R17.84. This morning, the USDZAR is currently trading at R17.81. "The major currency pairs also traded broadly firmer over the course of the previous session, with the EURUSD trading at 1,1410 this morning from the previous open at 1,1312 and the GBPUSD at 1,3580. "Possible trading range for the USDZAR today is R17.65 to R17.95. The markets are likely to trade cautiously today, and liquidity is at a premium, as both the London and New York markets are closed. The local unit continues to trade in positive territory, as the USD remains under pressure across the board,' Sumad said. At the beginning of this month, Adrian Goslett, Regional Director and CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, said he believes that the benefits of an interest rate cut at this time would outweigh the potential risks that the SARB is guarding against. Thus far, the ongoing global trade tensions and domestic economic challenges have led the SARB to adopt a cautious approach, favouring rate stability to navigate potential risks. 'Reducing the repo rate could boost consumer confidence, increase affordability, and encourage greater economic growth. Lower interest rates translate into reduced monthly repayments on home loans and other debts, putting more money back into consumers' pockets and stimulating broader economic activity. "This additional disposable income will positively impact other sectors reliant on consumer spending, driving economic growth across the board,' Goslett said. Moreover, Goslett added that an interest rate cut will send a strong positive signal to international and local investors, reinforcing confidence in South Africa's economic recovery trajectory, especially following the instability around VAT. Despite inflation being the lowest it has been since June 2020, economists widely anticipate that the SARB will keep the repo rate unchanged later this week. Independent Media Property
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rand and Bonds Take a Hit as Trump Hones in on South Africa
(Bloomberg) -- South African markets got off to a rocky start this week after President Donald Trump froze all US aid to South Africa over what he falsely claimed were rights violations stemming from a new land-expropriation law. Nice Airport, If You Can Get to It: No Subway, No Highway, No Bridge Sin puente y sin metro: el nuevo aeropuerto de Lima es una debacle The Forgotten French Architect Who Rebuilt Marseille In New Orleans, an Aging Dome Tries to Stay Super How London's Taxi Drivers Navigate the City Without GPS While global markets were mixed on Monday in reaction to Trump's latest tariffs, South Africa's rand initially weakened and government bond yields soared after he singled out the country for censure. The impact of Trump's funding freeze will mostly be on more than $400 million of annual funding for the country's longstanding AIDS prevention and treatment program, but investors are concerned he may also set his sights on South Africa's preferential trade access to the US. 'USDZAR has seen some extreme price action as a result of headlines from the US,' Nedbank Group Ltd. analysts including Reezwana Sumad wrote in a note. 'Foreign-exchange markets remain at the mercy of headlines, primarily those related to tariff implementation and suspension of aid from the US at this time.' The rand slumped as much as 1.4% before paring the decline to trade 0.1% weaker at 18.4280 per dollar by 11:32 a.m. in Johannesburg. Yields on 2035 government rand bonds climbed eight basis points to 10.51%. Still, the reaction was relatively muted compared with the selloff that followed Trump's previous salvo against South Africa. The rand plunged as much as 2% on Feb. 3 after he first threatened to cut assistance to South Africa, claiming in a Truth Social post, without providing evidence, that the country was confiscating land. 'Absent these tensions with the US, we would expect the rand and SA bonds to rally' on the back of improving economic fundamentals, said Marek Drimal, a strategist at Societe Generale SA. 'However, given the continuing risk of potential further escalation of US-SA disagreements, we would prefer to only buy the rand and bonds on dips.' Relations with Washington were already strained by South Africa's refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and for its case in the International Court of Justice alleging Israel's assault in the Gaza Strip was an act of genocide. They worsened last week after Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio falsely claimed South Africa authorities are seizing property under the expropriation law. Both ignored President Cyril Ramaphosa's statement that the assertion is untrue. The US has given South Africa more than $8 billion in bilateral aid over the past two decades, mostly for health programs. The country has also benefited from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows duty-free access for some exports including agricultural commodities and motor vehicles. The US is South Africa's largest trading partner after China, with two-way trade reaching $24 billion in 2023, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Trump's Tariffs Make Currency Trading Cool Again After Years of Decline The Reason Why This Super Bowl Has So Many Conspiracy Theories Believing in Aliens Derailed This Internet Pioneer's Career. Now He's Facing Prison Orange Juice Makers Are Desperate for a Comeback Business Schools Confront Trump Immigration Policies ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
