Johannesburg – The rand continued its firmer stance against the dollar at noon on Friday‚ advancing for a seventh day‚ its longest winning streak in five months‚ due to risk-on trade bolstered by prospects that the US will take measures to avert a budget crisis‚ which boosted riskier currencies such as the rand.
“The rand is pretty quiet at the moment amid lacklustre trade with importers looking for better rand levels to cover their exposures‚” said Brigid Taylor‚ head of flow sales at Nedbank Capital.
“Rand sentiment has improved over the last two days due to positive news around the Greek debt issue and because of better US GDP figures released yesterday. Negotiations to contain the US fiscal cliff led to risk-on appetite and we saw an equity and bond rally in our markets. Foreigners bought the local currency‚ equities and bonds‚” she said.
At 11.46am‚ the rand was bid at R8.7754/$ from Thursday’s close of R8.7842. The local currency was bid at R11.4012/€ from its previous close of R11.3883 and at R14.0725 against sterling from R14.0771 before.
The euro was bid at $1.2998‚ from 1.2971 at its previous close.