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Johannesburg - The rand weakened against the dollar on Monday as the greenback made broad-based gains, recovering from almost four-month lows reached last week on another bad round of US economic data.
At 17:01 GMT the local unit, which touched two-week highs on Friday, shed 0.54% to R11.8475 per dollar compared with its closing R11.7800/$ in New York on Friday.
The dollar gained against the basket of major currencies in a market eyeing the US inflation numbers which could push the greenback higher if the numbers come out better than expected.
"This is a dollar move. Today looks like there's more demand for dollars. It has been relatively cheap compared to what we saw last week," said Ion de Vleeschauwer, a chief dealer at Bidvest Bank.
"There's no real data out today but from Wednesday onwards we're going to see more data out and probably that will give the rand a bit more direction."
Locally traders will be looking at this week's release of domestic retail and inflation data, as well as a decision by the Monetary Policy Committee on interest rates.
The Reserve Bank is likely to leave the repo interest rate unchanged at 5.75% on Thursday, according to economists polled by Reuters .
Government bonds were mostly down, with the benchmark instrument due in 2026 shedding 7.5 basis points to 8.050%.
