JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's rand hovered on Wednesday near its previous day's close against the dollar and was expected to continue taking direction from global currency moves, with local business sentiment data taking a back seat.
The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry was due to release its latest confidence index at 0930 GMT while HSBC would issue its purchasing managers' index at 0715 GMT.
At 0638 GMT the rand traded at 11.1200 to the greenback, barely shifted from Tuesday's close of 11.1225.
The yield on the benchmark government bond maturing in 2026 was up 4.5 basis points at 7.71 percent.
The rand fell more than 1 percent against the dollar on Tuesday, hitting a session low of 11.1415 as weaker metal prices weighed on commodity-linked currencies.
Upbeat comments from the US Federal Reserve in recent days on the state of the US economy will continue to boost the dollar, RMB currency analyst John Cairns said in a note.
"Other news is marginally rand-positive. Asian equities have done well this morning on speculation that China could introduce more stimuli," he said.
"Commodity export prices have broadly stabilised, with the only pressure coming from the stronger dollar."
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