Johannesburg - The rand eased in early Friday trade and
looked set to break through an R8.20 support level that has held it down in
recent sessions, while yields on government debt hit fresh record lows as more
foreign money poured in in search of higher returns.
The rand was at R8.1620 against the dollar at 06:48 GMT,
0.21% weaker than its New York close of R8.1450.
The unit has been stuck in a R8.20-R8.06 band this week and
needs to break through those barriers to move out of its lull.
"We continue to watch these boundaries for direction -
R8.05 and R8.20 - and despite the event risk as we await the release of US
non-farm payrolls, our bias is to look for bottoming signals in dollar/rand," said
Absa technical strategist Judy Padayachee.
The rand ignored reserves data which showed South Africa's
international liquidity position had nudged up by $311m to $49.218bn in June
due to a higher gold price and a weaker dollar in the month.
With no other domestic data expected in this session,
dealers will look abroad, especially at the US non-farm payrolls numbers at
12:30 GMT.
Yields on government paper hit fresh records, at 5.90% on
the 2015 and 7.075% on the 2021 issue.
Treasury will look to place R800m of inflation-linked paper
in the session. Results are out after the auction closes at 09:00 GMT.