The Rand has moved from Lager swilling tattooed teenager lout to victrix ludorum honourous academia head girl captain of everything Harvard candidate, in a few short sessions.
And the reason for all of this euphoria is that US CPI came in at ONLY 8.5% yesterday, down from 9.1% last month.
And the market, like two love at first sight individuals seeing each other for the first time across a crowded room, loved the news.
Never mind that Inflation is still more than 4 times higher than the FEDS official target of 2%.
Suddenly the market seems to have called the end of inflation, and risk assets soared on the news. Such is the state of the current environment.
The result – the rand put on almost 50 cents yesterday, opening at around 16.60 and closing the day at around 16.15.
If you had told me a month ago that the rand would be closer to 16 than 17 during the month of August I would have had a good giggle.
Humble pie meet arrogant currency “expert”.
The recent volatility looks set to continue and now the bulls have the bit between the teeth, until of course the next crisis point, but no one is worried about those now.
Ukraine war? – relegated to page 3.
Political upheaval? – who cares?
Global debt? – tomorrows problem.
The market is having more boom and bust movements in a single month these days, than what we would have experienced in a full year decades past.
But it is what it is and we have to deal with it. Extreme market movements are here to stay ….hardly ever a dull day.
Speaking of louts, I see the Donald has more than a few issues to deal with as the FBI raided his residence over the weekend. Social media has allowed us a wonderful insight into human behavior.
FOX news and the Republicans are apoplectic (one of my favourite words), calling for the FBI to be abolished or at the very least defunded.
CNN and the democrats on the other hand are surely orgasmic with delight. And the sycophantic followers on both sides of the divide are not afraid of expressing their divided opinions, without waiting for, or even wanting the facts.
It’s the same thing here in South Africa...one's political persuasion determines one's response to current events.
If you are a supporter of The President it matters little that he has a few questions to answer. If you are a supporter of Jacob Zuma there is nothing that will convince you that he was at the very least complicate in state capture.
The poms are a little better – almost everybody agreed that Boris was an entitled liar who abused his position whilst “encouraging” the people to stay at home even as he hosted a few “non-parties”.
But by and large, across the world we see the same kind of reaction. Facts matter little, everyone is an expert. Dunning Kruger is the order of the day.
Global politics has always been a shady business , but it's getting worse. And no where is this more evident than in the USA. Americans seem to identify with political affiliation long before they identify with being a citizen.
Trump once said that he could literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still back him. He also once said that only the guilty take the fifth amendment – yesterday he took the fifth a few hundred times.
You may think that my anti Trump bias is a little partisan ….but you would be wrong. I’m an equal opportunist. I think all politicians are questionable.
Biden actually claimed credit yesterday for the lower than expected inflation number. I wonder if he was as enthusiastic about his role in creating the inflation monster in the first place.
Anyway...its almost the weekend. It's almost time for the Springboks to bully the All blacks again.