South Africa's rand and government bonds were steady in early Monday trade, with dealers expecting the currency to consolidate in the mid-6.90s ahead of key data later in the week.
|||South Africa's rand and government bonds were steady in early Monday trade, with dealers expecting the currency to consolidate in the mid-6.90s ahead of key data later in the week.
Gross domestic product numbers for the first quarter are due out on Tuesday at 11:30 SA time, shortly after money supply and credit data at 08:30 SA time, which will be watched for pointers to the interest rate outlook.
Analysts polled by Reuters see GDP growth slowing slightly to 4.2 percent on an annualised and seasonally adjusted basis from 4.4 percent in Q4 2010. Money supply and credit demand are seen nudging higher.
The rand was holding steady against the dollar on Monday after closing firmer during Friday's local trade.
At 08:52 SA time it was trading at 6.93 against the dollar, not far off Friday's New York close of 6.94.
Dealers said before the week's data the rand would be vulnerable to euro/dollar moves as the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis leads to dollar safe-haven buying.
However, the United States and Britain are on holiday this session and trade is expected to be slow.
“Later in the week, we expect rand participants to look to Greece,” Standard Bank said in a research note.
“If Greece fails to secure another tranche of its bailout package over the coming weeks, the euro could come under renewed selling pressure against the dollar and thereby cause the rand to weaken beyond 7.0/dollar.”
Government bonds were flat-to-weak on the longer-dated 15-year bond.
The yield on the 2015 bond was steady at 7.48 percent while that on the 2026 paper added one basis point to 8.485 percent.
The Johannesburg stock market opened flat after a four day winning streak last week. - Reuters
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/rand-bonds-stocks-steady-1.1075553
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