Related Articles
Top Stories
May 21 2012 09:02
The government was warned in 2010 that collection costs for the controversial e-toll system would be much higher than a petrol levy or tax, a report says.
May 21 2012 17:30
Mark Zuckerberg's fortune dwindled by nearly $2bnto $18.7bn within minutes as trading began again in Facebook shares – which promptly plunged by nearly $5.
May 20 2012 12:10
The state’s intervention team in Limpopo has scrapped a R320m textbook tender controversially awarded to a firm controlled by former government officials.
Johannesburg - The rand remained weak in noon trade on Tuesday ahead of the mini-budget speech as a combination of
factors weighed on the local unit.
At 11:45 the rand was bid at R10.2828 to the dollar from a previous close of R10.1263. It was bid at R13.6269 to the euro from a previous R13.5449 and at R17.5700 against sterling from R17.3700 before.
The euro was bid at $1.3246 from $1.3331 overnight, while gold was quoted at $781.80 a troy ounce from $796.72/oz overnight.
A local currency trader said that that the weaker rand was due to a host of factors - there is no liquidity in the market, the euro and pound are weaker against the dollar and emerging markets remain under pressure.
The main focus for local markets will be Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's Medium Term Budget Policy Statement at 14:00 this afternoon.
Dow Jones Newswires reports that an attack on high-yielders left the dollar mixed in Europe on Tuesday as investors once again started to worry about the state of the global economy.
The latest shift in sentiment appeared to come after the Reserve Bank of Australia issued a stiff warning in the minutes of its last monetary meeting about the state of the global economy.
The bank referred to the "sharply worsening conditions in the
international financial markets" and the risks posed by "the deterioration in the outlook for global activity."
The central bank's comments punctured an otherwise optimistic tone in financial markets, that had been encouraged by Fed Chaiperson Ben Bernanke's support for another fiscal package from US Congress to help the US economy avert any further decline.
The prospects of another economic stimulus package helped to lift the dollar as it suggested that the US may yet climb out of its slump before the other major economies.
- I-Net Bridge