Greenback, Power Outages, Fiscal Matters, Precious Metals Conspire Against Rand

USD/ZAR snaps a four-day losing streak today as greenback revival coupled with intensified power outages in South Africa sap strength from the rand. The rate last deals at 18.9800, over 1,000 pips higher on the session, with a familiar technical picture still in play.

• Eskom will alternate between Stages 5 and 6 of loadshedding as further generation units have been taken offline, while the utility needs to replenish the emergency generation reserves and increases planned maintenance.
• Fiscal concerns are also intensifying ahead of Finance Minister Godongwana's mini-budget, which will be delivered on November 1. The government will look for spending cuts as tax revenue is lagging targets.
• Weakness in precious metals might be adding some pressure to the rand, with the Bloomberg precious metals subindex last seen ~0.8% lower on the day, printing worst levels in three weeks.