Encouraged by a higher close on Wall Street overnight, the rand was steady in opening trade on Friday having retreated on Thursday amid a decline in global risk appetite which pushed the dollar higher against its rivals.

At 8.45am the rand was bid at 8.5382 to the dollar from an overnight close of 8.5153. It was bid at 11.5382 to the euro from a previous 11.6143 and at 12.9186 against sterling from 12.9715.

The euro was bid at 1.3594 from $1.3633 overnight.

RMB analyst John Cairns said in his morning report that the upside break on USD/ZAR yesterday through 8.56 and 8.61 has encouraged a lot of talk that the ZAR rally is over and that the trend will be the other way.

"We're also hearing rumours that a large corporate deal flow (Vodacom) has been completed, not that we put much trust in the rumours of the inflows in the first place. The problem for the ZAR bears is that moves are still dependent on international markets. And while the global equity and risk-taking rally has fizzled, there has been no sharp profit taking, leaving USD/ZAR right back at 8.52 this morning - exactly where we started yesterday," Cairns noted.

Event risk today is unusually focused on the EU where 1Q09 GDP data will be released, he added.

"We know it's going to be bad; consensus is for a two percent quarter-on-quarter contraction (eight percent at an annualised pace). US data pours in from 2.30pm. CPI would usually be the main focus and is still very important as the economy toys with deflation (negative inflation) but the main focus today will be on consumer confidence. Two-way risks then evident on the day, with a slight downside bias in the morning, but the multi-day bias still appears to be to the topside," Cairns said.

I-Net Bridge

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