Market Analysis
ETHUSD weekly recap: swing from 1747 to 1943 fades, 2026-07-13
ETHUSD opened at 1802.99 and closed the week at 1823.36, a gain of just over 1 percent after a sharp mid-week rally faded.
3 min readThe week in USDZAR opened at 16.3411 on Monday and closed at 16.4493 on Friday. Price stretched to a weekly high of 16.5025 on Tuesday and dipped to a weekly low of 16.2813 on Wednesday. The net move for the dollar was a gain of roughly 1,082 pips against the rand, about 0.66 percent from open to close.
The economic calendar for the week carried no scheduled high-impact prints in the bundle, so flows drove the action rather than a single data release. Monday set the tone with a push to 16.4725, then Tuesday and Wednesday saw the rand claw back ground as the pair sank to 16.2813. From there the dollar recovered into the Friday close.
The China fixing was one of the few concrete signals on the wire. Reuters flagged a firmer yuan fix expectation, and the actual PBOC reference rate came in slightly weaker than that estimate on Friday, a modest emerging market dollar tailwind. A firmer dollar tone across emerging market currencies lined up with the late-week bounce back toward 16.45.
The bundle lists no scheduled high-impact events for the coming week. With the calendar quiet, USDZAR is likely to take its cues from broad dollar direction and risk appetite. If risk sentiment sours and the dollar firms, the rand tends to weaken and the pair pushes higher. If risk appetite improves and the dollar softens, the rand tends to gain and the pair drifts lower. Watch the daily China fix for early tone, since a persistently weaker yuan fix often coincides with pressure on higher-yielding emerging market currencies like the rand. Compare the move against a cleaner risk proxy such as AUD/USD to gauge whether the driver is dollar-wide or rand-specific.
LHFX client positioning shows 58.6 percent long and 41.4 percent short as of 2026-07-17. The book leans toward the dollar, meaning more traders expect further USDZAR upside than downside. A crowded long skew can act as a headwind if price stalls, since those positions eventually need buyers to close into.
The weekly high at 16.5025 is the first ceiling. If price closes above it, the round-number zone near 16.55 comes into focus. On the downside, the Friday close near 16.4493 is the immediate pivot. A break back below the weekly low at 16.2813 would put the mid-16.20s back in play. If you want to track these levels live and act on your own read of the tape, you can open an account with us at LHFX.
Byline: LHFX Research
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