JOHANNESBURG – The rand made a mild recovery yesterday morning, but remained vulnerable to dollar strength.
At 8:20am the rand was at R11,7187 against the dollar from Monday’s close of R11,7708.
Against the euro the rand was at R13,1157 from a previous close of R13,1537 and the local currency was trading at R18,0289 against the British pound from a previous close of R18,0680. The euro was at $1,1199 against the dollar form a close of $1,1176.
The local currency stumbled on Monday following the release of disappointing local manufacturing data. The data followed news of the larger than expected deficit on the local trade balance.
Technical indicators pointed to further weakness for the rand, ETM Analytics market analyst Ricardo Da Camara said.
“We could push weaker to about R11,80 to the dollar,” he said, noting the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday and US nonfarm payrolls data on Friday, which posed the biggest risks to the local currency.
The rand last traded weaker than R11,80 to the dollar on February 12.
– BD Live
