Johannesburg – South African bonds were a touch softer in muted midday trade on Monday as they followed the weaker rand.
“There is not much happening as we wait for the European Union summit at the end of the week‚” a local trader said.
At noon‚ the benchmark R157 bond was trading at 6.055% from Friday’s close of 6.010%. The R207 was bid at 7.235% and offered at 7.205% from a previous close of 7.180% and the R186 was trading at 8.050% from its previous close of 7.990%.
The rand was bid at R8.4515 against the dollar from Friday’s close of R8.4113 and Thursday’s close of R8.3794.
The daily petrol price over-recovery was above 100 cents per litre for the second consecutive day on Friday‚ the Central Energy Fund said in its daily fuel price update.
Dow Jones Newswires reported that markets expected to be range bound ahead of the European Union (EU) summit meeting‚ which starts on Thursday.
Although no major announcements are expected to come out of the meeting‚ investors will still be looking for any clues as to how EU leaders will seek to spur growth‚ or whether European bailout funds will be used to buy sovereign debt in the secondary market.
Greece's new coalition government will seek to extend by "at least two years" to 2016 the budget-deficit targets Athens must achieve and is proposing a series of tax cuts and other measures over the next four years to support low-income groups‚ a document released on Saturday by the Greek government said.
Foreigners were net buyers of R1.905bn of South African bonds including repo transactions on Friday‚ after net purchases of R816.610m of local bonds on Thursday‚ data released by the JSE shows.
Nominal cumulative volume was R75.703bn on Friday from R82.553bn on Thursday.
Foreigners were net buyers of R1.904bn of South African bonds excluding repo transactions on Friday after net purchases of R1.391bn of local bonds on Thursday.
For the year to date foreigners have been net buyers of R45.875bn of local bonds‚ excluding repo transactions. In 2011 they were net buyers of R47.359bn worth of local bonds‚ excluding repo transactions.
In the year to date foreigners have been net buyers of R41.181bn of local bonds including repo transactions. In 2011 they bought R37.501bn worth of local bonds.