The rand continued to be range bound in noon trade on Wednesday.

South African markets were closed on Tuesday for a holiday.

At 11.45am the rand was bid at 8.0591 to the dollar from an overnight close of 8.0626 on Monday. It was bid at 11.1761 to the euro from a previous 11.1694 and at 13.1183 against sterling from 13.2065.

The euro was bid at $1.3867 from $1.3834 overnight.

A local currency trader said: "There is very little happening at the moment with the rand in ranges at 7.93-8.23. We may see slight movement from the US later this afternoon, but it's pretty quiet for now."

RMB analyst John Cairns said in a morning report that positives that drove the multi-month ZAR rally had started to fade. "The gold price hit a high of almost $990/oz early this month but has slipped back to $935.

"Underlying all this is the economic data, which indicates that while the global recession might be easing, there is little sign of a return to strong economic growth," Cairns said.

"The ZAR rally then has faded, at just over the 8.00 mark on USD/ZAR. Indeed, given the deteriorating fundamentals, USD/ZAR should even be slightly higher at around 8.15. But low volatility continues and it seems that we are going to need large international news to break us out of the rut of trading just over the 8.00 level," Cairns said, adding that there was little risk of that today given the absence of key international data, with 7.95/98 - 8.12 likely to hold for the day and risks are to the upside.

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