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Feb 13 2012 12:15
Miner Xstrata says it has brought forward maintenance on two furnaces to assist Eskom to save power.
Feb 13 2012 10:43
Although jobs were created, the economy is still 420 000 jobs short of the peak employment level before the 2009 global financial crisis, says Adcorp.
Feb 13 2012 07:58
Greek lawmakers have approved a new round of drastic austerity measures after a long day of street battles between police and protesters left dozens injured.
Johannesburg - The rand remained above the R10 per dollar level on Friday, initially weakening after the release of US non-farm payrolls, before returning to levels seen before the release of the data and then strengthening slightly.
The dollar rose against the euro and fell against the yen after the October US non-farm payroll data, but then reversed the move about 15 minutes later and fell against the euro and pound.
However, the rand was still well off its overnight worst levels of around 10.27.
At 15:45 the rand was bid at R10.0508 to the dollar from a previous close of R10.2452. It was bid at R12.8756 to the euro from a previous R12.9921 and at R15.9410 against sterling from R15.8686 before.
The euro was bid at $1.2813 from $1.2678 overnight, while gold was quoted at $739.35 a troy ounce from $733.90/oz overnight.
A local currency trader said earlier that the rand had tried to move below 10.04 earlier, but didn't manage to stay there.
Dow Jones Newswires reports US job losses accelerated the last two months pushing the unemployment rate to 14-year highs in October, a government report showed, suggesting the economic downturn has taking a turn for the worse toward a deep recession.
The data, which included a small rise in wages, may prompt Federal Reserve officials to consider lowering interest even further in coming weeks to half-century lows.
Non-farm payrolls, which are calculated by a survey of establishments, tumbled a larger-than-expected 240 000 in October, the labour department said on Friday, the 10th-straight decline pushing total job losses for the year to 1.2 million.
September was revised sharply lower to show a job loss of 284 000, the biggest drop since November 2001. The pull-back was broad-based, including manufacturing, construction and most service industries. Excluding a rise in government payrolls, private-sector employment plummeted even further last
month.
The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a separate survey of households, soared 0.4 percentage point to 6.5%, its highest since March 1994.
Wall Street economists had expected a 200 000 decline in payrolls last month and only a 6.3% jobless rate, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
- I-Net Bridge