The selloff in emerging market currencies showed no signs of easing on Thursday, after the Federal Reserve announced further cuts to stimulus, while a slowdown in Chinese factory activity also heightened risk aversion.
Emerging economies such as Turkey and South Africa rely heavily on foreign investor flows to fund their current account shortfalls, making them particularly vulnerable to a reduction in global liquidity as the Fed scales back stimulus.Unease over emerging economies intensified after the Federal Reserve rolled back its bond purchasing program by another $10 billion to $65 billion-per-month at its policy meeting on Wednesday.
Risk aversion was also fuelled by renewed concerns over a slowdown in China after revised data on Thursday showed that China’s HSBC manufacturing index ticked down to a six-month low of 49.5 this month, below the preliminary estimate for 49.6.
The Turkish lira was down more than 1% against the dollar, having lost all of the gains created by Tuesday’s night’s massive interest rates hikes.
USD/TRY hit session highs of 2.3012 and was last up 1.41% to 2.2925. The pair fell to lows of 2.1637 on Wednesday.
Turkey’s central bank raised its overnight lending rate to 12% from 7.75% on Tuesday night. The bank also raised its one-week repo rate and its overnight borrowing rate in a bid to stave off inflation and shore up the lira.
The South African rand weakened to more than five-year lows against the dollar, one day after its central bank took markets by surprise with a rise in borrowing costs.
USD/ZAR hit session highs of 11.3907, and was last up 0.24% to 11.3445.
The South African Reserve Bank raised its benchmark interest rate to 5.5% up from 5.0% on Wednesday, the first rate hike since June 2008.
The central bank said a sustained depreciation of the rand will "significantly" raise the risk to the inflation outlook.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian forint fell to two year lows against the euro, with EUR/HUF advancing 0.98% to 312.210.
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