Johannesburg - The South African bond market was flat in dull midday trade on Monday as there was nothing to move the market.
“The rand seems to have found a stable level for the moment. We are waiting to see which way the rand lemmings move next‚ and bonds will follow at a more measured pace‚ but for now there is nothing to move the market‚ so volumes are very light‚” a local bond dealer said.
At 11:46 the benchmark R186 was trading at 7.345% from 7.350% at Friday’s close and 7.370% at Thursday’s close. The R157 was bid at 5.385% and offered at 5.365% from 5.380% at its previous close and the R207 was bid at 6.330% and offered at 6.300% from its previous close of 6.320%.
The rand was last bid at R8.9544/$ from R8.9422 at Friday’s close and R9.0686 at Thursday’s close.
On the rand pushing past the key psychological barrier of R9.00/$ on Wednesday last week Standard Bank said: “There was some commodity price weakness on the day‚ but commodity and emerging market currency performance was more mixed‚ and the rand under-performed by a wide margin across both currency categories.
"This suggests that the rand moved beyond beta considerations and on domestic-specific factors. The magnitude of the move‚ to our minds‚ speaks to underlying fragility of the balance of payments‚ ongoing negative domestic news flow with regard to labour market developments and market psychology/technicals‚” the bank said.
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