Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - The rand weakened further from its
morning levels by noon on Thursday with pressure being added by a slightly
stronger dollar, a local trader said.
At 11:50 the rand was bid at 7.5267 to the dollar from 7.4368 at its
previous close. It was bid at 11.1940 to the euro from its previous close of
11.1196 and was at 12.5684 against sterling from 12.4267.
The euro was bid at $1.4866 from $1.4961 overnight.
"We have weakened from this morning. We are testing the upper end of the
range. If we close above 7.53-7.54, we might reach levels of 7.65-7.68, that is
the next technical level," a trader said.
"Pressure is coming from the slightly higher dollar. The rand has also
given up against the euro and the pound.
"It's not too unexpected. There is a good chance we will go up to the 7.60
level in the short term," he said.
Earlier RMB analysts John Cairns and Nema Ramkhelawan noted that the US
dollar/rand strolled back and forth between 7.48 and 7.40 yesterday.
"The unit is suspended below 7.50 and is likely to trade above this level
today as the market appears to be suffering from fatigue. Having retreated to
1.48 earlier this week, euro/US dollar is clawing its way back up to 1.50. The
unit, however, does not appear to have the energy to extend itself beyond this
level," the analysts said.
They said that weekly US jobless benefit claims, due later today, would
offer some indication of the state of labour conditions.
"The rand will take heed of movements in the gold price, which continues to
provide support to the unit despite a slight pullback yesterday." "We are
unlikely to witness extreme fluctuations in the rand, however, given lower
levels of volatility and a narrow trading range which has been evident over the
last few days," RMB said.
"Besides daily event risk, the market is paying careful attention to
comments arising from the US, following Chairman Bernanke's remarks earlier
this week, with another prominent Federal Reserve official confirming that US
interest rates are likely to remain near zero for an extended period of time,"
Cairns and Ramkhelawan concluded.
- I-Net Bridge