Indications of slowing employment growth in the US were seen as good news for emerging markets, as it implied a delay of either tapering or normalisation. As a result, emerging market exchange rates, including the rand, experienced a high degree of volatility in the face of these changing flows.
As shown in a recent paper by Eichengreen and Gupta, the countries most affected were those with large current account deficits and those with relatively large and liquid financial markets which allowed for investors to be better able to rebalance their portfolios.