Cape Town - The rand rout continued on Friday, with the local unit briefly breaking through R16/$ before recovering to the high R15.70s.

The strong selloff of the rand started on Wednesday night after President Jacob Zuma axed Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and replaced him with relatively unknown ANC MP David van Rooyen.

"There is a lot of nervousness which reminds me of 2001," independent treasury specialist to corporates, Adam Phillips of Umkhulu Consulting, told Fin24.