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Johannesburg - The rand eased but remained near a
three-and-a-half year lows against the dollar on Tuesday due to weeks of labour
unrest that have rattled investors.
By 06:35 GMT, the rand was trading at R8.8454 to the
greenback, a touch softer than Monday’s New York close of R8.9186.
During the previous session, the rand fell more than 2% to R8.995 - its lowest since April 2009 - but then retraced its steps.
Despite support at R9.0, analysts say the rand is likely to
remain under pressure with no end in sight to the strikes that have hit the
mining, manufacturing and transport sectors.
“We don’t see any change in the status quo. Things are still
poor. It looks like the market’s found some kind of equilibrium for now,” said
David Gracey, a currency trader for Investec.
Government bonds, which slid with the rand on Monday, also
found a bit of firm footing to trade higher.
The yield on the three-year benchmark was 4 basis points
lower to 5.49% and that for the 14-year issue dropped 5.5 basis points at
7.82%.
Treasury will sell a total of R2.1bn over a range of its 2023, 2021 and 2031 government bonds in the session. Results are due after the auction closes at 09:00 GMT.
