Marketwatch is one of the online publishers of how the USD and other currencies are trading against the local currency on Zimbabwe’s diverse markets.
Value of the Zimbabwe Dollar is measured in different ways by different people under different circumstances. The value has been fluctuating so much that the typical person in Zimbabwe will always want to find out how the currency is faring from time to time as they make daily decisions.
Examples of the different rates that different people consider from time to time:
- The Black Market USD:RTGS rate: The most important since most of our money is in mobile wallets and bank accounts
- The Black Market USD:Bond rate: You get a lil more USD if you have bond notes cash but these are are more scarce than USD notes if you ask me
- The Interbank USD:RTGS rate: We just follow this to see how wide the gap is between our reality and the lala land the authorities reside in. We also follow it to estimate how much companies like ZOL will charge us.)
- The Old Mutual Implied Rate OMIR: Well this one is usally close to the black market action, sometimes below, sometimes above. It just tell;s us that the formal economy agrees more with the black market than with the government.
Marketwatch
The complexity of the different exchange rates makes services like Marketwatch (marketwatch.co.zw) quite useful. Marketwatch describes itself as a group of researchers focused on researching Zimbabwe’s parallel markets.
Now, this group of analysts claims that the Government of Zimbabwe has threatened them, accusing them of fueling the black market. Marketwatch claim that they do not influence rates in any way but just report on what will be going on in the different markets.
To prove their point, they have decided to suspend publishing the parallel market rates on their website for two weeks. They believe after two weeks it will be clear to the government and everyone else that they were not influencing the value of money but merely reporting on how the market is valuing local money.
Here’s what they said:
Threats from the Government suggest that Marketwatch has been pushing the parallel market rates, so we will no longer be quoting Rates for the next 2 weeks
After this period we feel we would have proved to the higher powers that we have no control and are simply “Market Watchers”. It all comes down to the people’s confidence in the new Zimbabwean dollar.
Techzim using Marketwatch as a source
Techzim Market uses Marketwatch as a source to help those who want to know the current rates easily via WhatsApp. We are still getting the data from Marketwatch but unfortunately for the next two weeks, the information will have all other rates except the black market rates. If you want to use this service you just send the word, “Rate” to Techzim Market number 0719696102 or click this shortcut link: http://wa.me/263719696102?text=Rate
What Marketwatch thinks about the recent currency changes
Here is what Marketwatch says:
Can what the government is trying to do work? Yes it can. Will it work? We don’t know. With proper fiscal discipline going forward we do believe that confidence can be restored in Zimbabwe and our new Currency!
7 comments
Well now I’m buying at the interbank rate or below… This is a positive move… The sellers would just show market watch and that was the rate… Now you show the interbank and that’s the end of it… Thank you market watch
As long as we have borders that allow individuals that carry cash instead of bank cards or traveller’s checks, as long as we have people who freight goods from neighboring countries to our country, as long as the zim custom of corruption is still in place and functioning like an oild machine, as long as we are rulled by idivisuals laws not according to our constitution, as long as we allow indivisuals to publictly state that so and so will be taken out of power by such and such a day without voting the black market will always come back to haunt the country. Economy is politics and vice verser. Economy doesnt have a party to follow but it needs sharp minds to deal with it. As long as there is this black veil called zanu pf and mdc we wii always be controlled by black market
MDC is not in power
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The other folks are Zimbollar . I seem to see when rate falls they delay publishing, yet rush to publish when it goes up. They either benefit or just enjoy it when rates go up. Currently they have very high “official” rate of over 10 for Bond to USD$ put on 5th. Have seen this trend before. Official rates have never gone that high so one wonders what they mean. We need to understand that something published reaches many people and where the exact source is not known it may be unfair to drive the market based on that. If it’s real then someone must be ready to be mentioned as the one moving XXX$ at that rate. If it’s an underworld they must stay there, underground and not get publicity that then drives formal markets and punishes the poorest of the poor. If a rate is not tied to a named entity I can approach in broad daylight and get the money it must not be allowed to drive markets and impact the population.
OMIR is someone stuck with cash in ZW and wanting to export it. Such a person is happy to make a loss for the purpose of getting cash in another country at a time getting such cash is difficult due to other people holding the cash for speculative reasons, or there simply being no cash due to lack of productive activity in the country. It must then not be used as the rate at which a normal trading entity that needs forex in Zimbabwe must pay. Further, unless Old Mutual can show that there are benefits to Zimbabwe in the fungibility of their share, they must stop it voluntarily based on pure business ethics for the sake of millions of people who are impacted by the forex yoyo in Zimbabwe.
This govt is desperate to “prove” that their juju economics is working. Unlike their pliant rural folk who rely on the govt 100%, they have to grapple with individuals and entities that have their own self-driving power called thinking. Sadly, it seems to be coming out that thinking is not an easy activity of what the online publishers call “higher authorities”. How “high” are they when they can’t sort out simple stuff at ground level…? Even common-sense seems to elude them all.