The rand was slightly stronger against the dollar on Thursday afternoon as the currency stabilised after having lost more than 15c on Wednesday, following Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s medium-term budget policy statement. Markets did not like the minister’s lowering the outlook for SA’s economic growth for this year to 0.5% from 0.9%. The budget deficit was also predicted to widen to 3.4% of GDP from 3.2%. The rand had been trading around the R13.76 level to the dollar ahead of the budget speech on Wednesday, but weakened to R13.92 just after the speech. At 3.40pm, the rand was at R13.8684 to the dollar from Wednesday’s R13.8825. It was at R15.1441 to the euro from R15.1418, and R16.9369 to the pound from R17.0025. This was despite the generally stronger dollar over the past few days. The euro was at $1.0919, from $1.0908 in the previous session. TreasuryOne dealer Andre Botha said GDP was a major factor in rating agencies’ decisions regarding a country’s sovereign rating and, w...
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