The rand was largely unchanged, albeit with a firmer bias, on Monday morning as the market awaited fresh direction from global developments, notably whether the dollar would soften further. The dollar has been in a weakening trend against the euro after the US Federal Reserve increased interest rates earlier in the month. US bonds have been firming on the premise that weaker US inflation data would put a spanner in the works of the Fed’s more hawkish stance. A weaker dollar tends to support the rand, which falls in the basket of emerging-market currencies. Local data set to be released this week, including employment figures, producer price inflation, private sector credit extension and trade data, were not expected to be the major drivers of rand trade. Despite various local political headlines and utterances that had the markets on the back foot for much of last week, the rand managed to close firmer than R13 to the dollar on Friday, Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking analys...
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