Budget Speech has little effect on rand

The rand remained steady against the dollar in late afternoon trade on Wednesday, seeming to ignore Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget Vote Speech, which was presented to Parliament earlier.

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Rand steady, euro stuck in ranges

The local currency was also tracking a euro that was locked in ranges.

"The rand is unchanged after Minister Gordhan's speech and so you can't read anything into what the rand is trading at in relation to the national Budget," a local currency trader said.

"The euro is in a tight range today and not all the news around it has been good. In addition, we found that flows today were a little subdued - possibly due to the fact that the Budget Vote Speech was taking place," he added.

At 15:31 local time, the rand was bid at R7.7268 to the dollar from its previous close of R7.7313. It was bid at R10.2122 to the euro from R10.2386 before, and at R12.0943 against sterling from R12.1995 previously.

The euro was bid at US$1.3225 from its previous close of US$1.3249.

Meanwhile Dow Jones Newswires reported that the euro range-traded against the dollar amid caution over whether Greece would follow through with fiscal reforms after an ambitious EUR130 billion rescue deal was struck on Tuesday.

"The focus will now be on the implementation of the private-sector involvement and the participation rate which, if not enough, could lead to a credit event. The details of the deal will be resolved over the next few weeks and an orderly Greek default cannot be completely ruled out," said Raghav Subbarao, a foreign-exchange strategist for Barclays Capital, in a note to clients.