Rand slightly stronger in wake of US jobs data

Cape Town - The rand strengthened slightly in early afternoon trade on Friday, after US jobs and employment data was released. 

"The US dollar is slightly under pressure at the moment with USD/ZAR trading lower at R12.05/$," said TreasuryONE in a snap note on Friday afternoon. 

By 15:29 the local unit was trading at R12.02 to the greenback. While this is 7 cents better than its intraday low of R12.09, it is still weaker than its opening price of R11.97.

As Bloomberg reported, new data released on Friday showed that US hiring cooled by more than forecast in March following a strong February, while wages picked up and the country's unemployment rate remained at 4.1%.

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