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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - The rand dipped against the dollar in early Thursday trade, largely tracking global trends a day after the central bank reiterated it would leave the exchange rate to be determined by markets.
The central bank, finance ministry and trade unions have all warned the rand's gains of more than 20% against the dollar this year could hurt the economy, but the government has stressed it will stick to a free floating exchange rate.
On Wednesday new Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus reiterated the central bank's policy of not using its reserves to influence the level of the rand.
At 08:45, the currency traded 0.5% weaker at 7.4825 to the greenback, weighed down by a dip in global risk appetite, after ending Wednesday's session at 7.4450.
IDEAglobal emerging market analyst Alvise Marino said Wednesday's central bank statement should offer assurance that the central bank would not be intervening aggressively in the market.
"We therefore see marginal stronger appetite for the rand resulting from this statement and remain of the opinion that the currency will close the year in line with our 7.169 target," he wrote in a note.
"We do not expect the currency to break outside of the 7.30-7.60 range before the end of the month," he added.
The JSE securities exchange's blue-chip Top-40 December futures contract was last up just 0.22%, pointing to a rather flat start for South Africa's bourse at 09:00.
Government bonds were mixed. The yield on the 2015 bond fell 2.5 basis points to 8.255% while that for the longer-dated 2036 bond edged up 1 basis point to 8.705%.
- Reuters