{"id":12500,"date":"2012-07-17T12:55:04","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/s-african-rand-firms-amid-u-s-stimulus-hopes\/"},"modified":"2012-07-17T12:55:04","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:55:04","slug":"s-african-rand-firms-amid-u-s-stimulus-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-african-rand-firms-amid-u-s-stimulus-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"S.African rand firms amid U.S. stimulus hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

* Rand firms ahead of Bernanke testimony<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

* Currency seen trading in 8.12-8.05 range<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

JOHANNESBURG, July 17<\/span> (Reuters) – South Africa’s rand firmed
\nagainst the dollar on Tuesday amid hopes the U.S. Federal
\nReserve will provide more monetary stimulus to the world’s
\nbiggest economy after a poor retail sales report.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The rand was 0.45 percent firmer against the greenback at
\n0637 GMT, from Monday’s New York close of 8.220, with attention
\nfocused on U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s
\ntestimony to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“The rand has moved marginally stronger this morning,” said
\nBrigid Taylor, head of institutional sales at Nedbank. “It is
\nlargely driven by a lot of speculation that Bernanke’s report
\ntoday will indicate more quantitative easing.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Government bonds gained, with the yield on the three-year
\nbond down a basis point to a record low of 5.730
\npercent and that on the longer dated 14-year paper
\ndown by the same margin to 7.535 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Locally, the South African Reserve Bank kicks off its
\nthree-day monetary policy committee meeting on Tuesday and
\nTreasury will auction 2.1 billion rand of its 2023,
\n2036 and 2048 government bonds at 0900 GMT.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

According to 21 of 23 economists polled by Reuters, the
\ncentral bank will hold its repo rate at a three-decade low of
\n5.5 percent. The two outlying analysts predicted a 50 basis
\npoint cut to prop up growth in Africa’s biggest economy.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

South Africa’s government bonds have received massive
\nsupport from foreign investors this year, pushing yields to
\nrecord lows and boosting the local currency.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“We have seen our bond market rallying quite hard over he
\nlast week,” Taylor said. That has also continued to support the
\nrand levels that we currently seeing.”<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Vuyani Ndaba; Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* Rand firms ahead of Bernanke testimony * Currency seen trading in 8.12-8.05 range JOHANNESBURG, July 17 (Reuters) – South Africa’s rand firmed against the dollar on Tuesday amid hopes the U.S. Federal Reserve will provide more monetary stimulus to the world’s biggest economy after a poor retail sales report. The rand was 0.45 percent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}