Rand Faces More Manic Mondays as Japan Currency Romance Unwinds
- Tokyo traders open interest in rand most after dollar, pound
- Bets more than doubled as South Africa's currency sank in 2015
South Africa Rand Plunges as Much as 9 Percent
There’s more Monday morning pain to come for South Africa’s rand as Japanese retail investors are forced to end their romance with the currency, Macquarie Bank Ltd. says.
Open interest in the rand is the highest after the dollar and the pound for Japan’s individual traders, exceeding bets on high-yielders such as the currencies of Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, according to data on Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc.’s website. Positions more than doubled from June through December as the rand lost 24 percent against the yen. Most of the bets are probably on rand gains since the typical investing style in this sector is to be long currencies that offer higher yields and to wager that current price moves will reverse, said Gareth Berry, a strategist at Macquarie in Singapore.