Johannesburg - The South African bond market was a touch firmer in midday trade on Wednesday ahead of the 2013 budget due to be delivered in Parliament at 14:00. Dealers said the market was ignoring the weaker rand.
“There seems to be some demand from offshore that has led to a firmer bias‚ but volumes remain light ahead of the budget‚” a local bond trader said.
At 11:33 the benchmark R186 was trading at 7.220% from 7.225% at Tuesday’s close and 7.200% at Monday’s close. The R157 was bid at 5.210% and offered at 5.195% from 5.225% at its previous close‚ and the R207 was bid at 6.240% and offered at 6.210% from its previous close of 6.240%.
The rand was last bid at R8.8524/$ from R8.8219 at Tuesday’s close.
The National Treasury said at 11:00 that it would auction R1.1bn of R186 bonds‚ R500m of R214 bonds‚ and R500m of R2023 bonds on March 5.
Eskom said it allotted R75m of its inflation-linked EL29 bond at a clearing yield of 1.755% after receiving bids worth R265m. It also allotted R125m of its vanilla ES33 bond at a clearing yield of 8.72% after receiving bids worth R445m.
Follow Fin24 on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.