Rand little changed

Johannesburg - The South African rand was steady around its previous closing levels against the US dollar and firmer against the crosses in early trade on Monday, confined to its recent trading range despite a weak euro.

At 09:00 the rand was bid at R7.5666 to the dollar from R7.5774 at its previous close. It was bid at R10.5148 to the euro from its previous close of R10.5300 and was at R12.0732 against the sterling from R12.1144.

The euro was bid at $1.3887 from $1.3874 previously.

RMB analysts said in their morning report that the USD/ZAR will be very lucky if it can avoid pushing upwards out of its R7.54-R7.66 range and past R7.72.

"Various pressures are evident. Most importantly, EUR/USD continues its slide. Greek fears are weighing and fiscal concerns are now extending to France. US 4Q09 data was surprisingly positive, rising 5.7% q/q, showing quite clearly that the US is going to be the outperformer in the economic recovery," they said.

Commodities are also taking a beating - January being their worst month since the middle of the Lehman's storm. Policy risks are also evident. Locally it seems that the debate about inflation targeting will take many months to play out but global markets have been rocked by suggestions by the UK authorities that they might try to curb carry trades

"USD/ZAR managed to avoid all this Friday - helped perhaps by the excellent local trade data - but the pressure is likely to take its toll as the week progresses," they said.

- I-Net Bridge