Rand hardly moves on Nene's budget speech

Johannesburg - The rand steadied against the dollar early on Thursday as traders awaited the release of US inflation data later in the day that is likely to move the greenback.

The day after Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene raised income tax for the first time in 20 years, the rand was trading at R11.4600 to the dollar at 08:30, not far off its Wednesday closing level of R11.4460.

READ: All about Nene's budget - as it happened

"Today the all-important CPI data is released in the States," said Warrick Butler of Standard Bank in a note.

"If inflation does indeed print lower again, as expected by analysts, we should then continue to see a further decline in the value of the greenback."

In local data, producer price inflation numbers for January will be South Africa released on Thursday but this was not expected to have an impact on the currency, Butler said.

In fixed income, government bonds gained with the yield for the 2026 benchmark down 2 basis points to 7.585%.