Johannesburg - The rand was little changed at midday on Thursday as a weaker dollar and stronger euro brought a welcome reprieve to the ailing currency.
Nonetheless‚ “The rand is looking rather precarious at the moment in a nervous market‚” said William Van Rijn‚ head of spot fx trading at Nedbank. “The rand has been under immense pressure over the past 10 sessions and pushed through some significant levels. We’ve had a minimal reprieve today and yesterday; the dollar has turned back some of its gains and the euro has recovered slightly.”
The local currency has fallen more than 15% this year‚ coming within range of the psychological R10/$ mark‚ and touching a weakest level of R9.85 during the day on Wednesday.
“There is quite a lot of focus on the data points going forward and none more so than the trade figures tomorrow‚” he said.
South African foreign trade data for April will be released by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) on Friday at 14:00.
At 11:23 the rand was bid at R9.8152/$ from R9.8110 at Wednesday’s close and R9.7801 at Tuesday’s close.
The local currency was bid at R12.7341/ from its previous close of R12.6844 and was at R14.8898 against sterling from R14.8375 at its previous close.
The euro was bid at $1.2972 from $1.2934 at Wednesday’s close and $1.2854 at Tuesday’s close.