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Johannesburg - Comments by South African Reserve Bank (Sarb)
governor Gill Marcus and the weaker rand vied for giving the South African bond
market direction in quiet midday trade on Wednesday.
Marcus said there was room to move rates‚ but it was not
appropriate now.
“The dovish central bank comments and the weaker rand are
vying for attention at the moment‚ with the rand winning currently‚” a local
bond trader said.
At 11.45am‚ the benchmark R186 was trading at 7.580% from
7.550% at Tuesday’s close. The R157 was trading at 5.470% from 5.460% at its
previous close. The R207 was bid at 6.495% and offered at 6.480% from its
previous close of 6.455%.
The rand was bid at R8.8641 per dollar from its previous
close of R8.8358.
Eskom allotted R350m of its inflation linked EL29 bond at a
clearing yield of 1.8% after receiving bids worth R680m‚ while it allotted R50m
of its ES33 bond at a clearing yield of 8.96% after receiving bids worth R315m.
The National Treasury will auction R700m worth of R2023
bonds‚ R700m worth of R214 bonds and R700m worth of R2048 bonds on December 4.
SA's lower than expected 1.2% economic growth in the third
quarter was “self-inflicted”‚ Marcus told a National Union of Metalworkers SA
(Numsa) conference on Wednesday.
The lower growth was attributed to strikes that took place
in the mining and transport sectors during the quarter.
She said the Reserve Bank still had more room to cut interest rates‚ but that reductions were “not appropriate” at this time. The bank cut the repo rate by 50 basis points in July‚ and left it unchanged at 5% in September and November when the monetary policy committee met.
