The rand was rangebound early on Thursday morning remaining very thin with little activity overnight, traders said.

At 9.12am the rand was bid at 7.6450 to the dollar from 7.6090 at its previous close. It was bid at 11.3450 to the euro from its previous close of 11.3235 and was at 12.6108 against sterling from 12.6050.

The euro was bid at $1.4823 from $1.4876 overnight.

"The rand is very thin, it's done nothing overnight," one trader said.

"I would imagine that we will see some buying at around 7.62-7.72," he said.

"We went down to 7.59 overnight. The dollar weakened against the euro. Equities were up overnight and the gold price is still high. Those were the main drivers," another trader said.

"On the bottom side we will probably find support at around 7.59. We are in a range of about 7.60-7.75," he said.

RMB analysts John Cairns and Nema Ramkhelawan said that rand volatility, according to the IMF, had benefits as well as drawbacks for South Africa.

"This is certainly true - without the ZAR acting as a shock absorber, our economic downturn would have been much worse," they said.

"This is, however, small consolation to the corporate sector left dealing with the volatility even if, as the IMF states, local markets provide tools to deal with this volatility.

"When updating our spreadsheets for our Picture the Rand report, we noted that USD/ZAR has been trading with an almost perfect correlation with EUR/USD. And with high intensity too - a 1 percent move in EUR/USD has generated a 1.7 percent move in the ZAR. This highlights very clearly where the risks lie - a recovery or further weakness in the USD and shows why this week's central bank meetings could be important. The Fed created few surprises last night," the analysts said.

"They were slightly more upbeat on the economic outlook but kept their stance on rates saying that they would remain low 'for an extended period of time'. Combined with a corresponding push in the gold price to almost $1100 an ounce and some gains in equities, this put the USD under fresh pressure overnight," said Cairns and Ramkhelawan.

"USD/ZAR has moved in tandem, but traded off 7.60 to come into this morning at 7.67. But while the risk environment is better and nerves are settling somewhat, it's too early to say that this bout of risk aversion is over. As with yesterday there should probably be a slight downward bias but don't expect one-way traffic. Event risk comes at 15:30 when the ECB governor talks and when we get US productivity and jobs data," they added.

Dow Jones Newswires reported that foreign exchange markets are looking past the Fed statement and focused on monetary policy meetings of the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.

The US dollar, euro and pound are lower against the yen as Japanese exporters settled accounts.

"The Fed's on hold, the global economy is recovering and that's negative for the US dollar," said Adam Boyton, currency strategist at Deutsche Bank.

"There's no reason the euro couldn't pass $1.55 by the end of the year," he added.

Bonds slightly stronger

Bonds were bid slightly stronger in early trade on Thursday as offshore buying led to some short covering activity.

By 08:37, the short-term government R154 bond was bid at 7.095 percent from a previous close of 7.045 percent. The medium-term R157 was at 8.340 percent from 8.355 percent, while the long-term R186 was bid at an unchanged 8.955 percent.

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