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Rand hits a 3-month high

Johannesburg - The rand hit a 3-month high against the dollar on Monday after a surprise trade surplus and stronger than expected domestic credit figures backed the case for interest rate increases.

The rand was at R10.526/$ at 16:29 GMT, 0.5% stronger than its overnight New York close.

South Africa swung to a trade surplus of R1.72bn ($163.5m) in February after R17bn deficit in January. Market consensus was for a R3bn deficit.

"The trade balance came out positive, exporting is robust and it is going to outpace import growth, it really shows that the trade balance figure has the potential to improve," said Murat Toprak, a forex strategist at HSBC.

Credit demand in the domestic private sector quickened to 8.67% year-on-year in February from 8.16% in January, also cementing views the economy is picking up.    

Government bonds were largely flat in late trade, with the yields for the 2026 instrument, the benchmark for the secondary market, up 3 basis points at 8.41%.

The note maturing in 2015 ended at 6.805%.
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Rand - Dollar
18.93
-0.2%
Rand - Pound
23.90
-0.0%
Rand - Euro
20.44
+0.1%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.34
+0.1%
Rand - Yen
0.13
-0.1%
Platinum
906.59
+1.1%
Palladium
1,012.66
+1.1%
Gold
2,221.55
+1.2%
Silver
24.87
+0.9%
Brent Crude
86.09
-0.2%
Top 40
68,346
+1.0%
All Share
74,536
+0.9%
Resource 10
57,251
+2.9%
Industrial 25
103,936
+0.6%
Financial 15
16,502
-0.1%
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