South Africa's rand weakens

South Africa's rand edged weaker in subdued trade on Tuesday with market participants awaiting a local lending rates decision and one by the US central bank next week before making any big calls. At 1500 GMT the rand was 0.1% weaker at 13.9150 per dollar, hardly budging from the overnight close of 13.9025. Early trade saw the rand touch a session best of 13.8350 before strong growth in US retail sales re-energized the greenback and dampened expectations of a deep rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week.
Locally, retail sales data due on Wednesday will likely be overshadowed by the policy decision by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) on Thursday. Twenty-four of 30 economists in a survey by Reuters said the SARB would cut rates by 25 basis points to 6.50% on July 18. Two expected a cut of 50 basis points. The other four said rates would be left unchanged.