The rand was slightly firmer against major currencies on Tuesday at midday as the market awaited the outcome of the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee meeting later in the afternoon. The meeting follows a higher than expected inflation rate of 6.8% in December 2016 from 6.6% in November. However, despite inflation being outside the 3%-6% target range, the general market consensus is that the Reserve Bank will keep the repo rate unchanged at 7%. The dollar was slightly stronger against the euro after weakening earlier following US President Donald Trump’s protectionist speech at his inauguration on Friday. NKC African Economics economists said that although the rand and dollar were reasonably stable, they were both vulnerable to changing investor confidence due to uncertainty around US monetary policy. Local political uncertainty was likely to put the rand under pressure, they said. At 11.29am, the rand was at R13.4426 to the dollar from R13.4724, at R14.4359 to the euro from R...
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