{"id":15962,"date":"2012-10-29T20:09:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T18:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/10\/s-africas-rand-weakens-on-euro-fears-and-local-budget\/"},"modified":"2012-10-29T20:09:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T18:09:34","slug":"s-africas-rand-weakens-on-euro-fears-and-local-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africas-rand-weakens-on-euro-fears-and-local-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa’s rand weakens on euro fears and local budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Oct 29 (Reuters) – The rand weakened against
\nthe dollar on Monday, pressured by debt crisis concerns in the
\neuro zone, South Africa’s biggest trading bloc, and worries
\nabout a wider domestic budget deficit.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan projected last week a wider
\nbudget shortfall for this year, while lower growth forecasts
\ncombined with a further delay in consolidating the budget are
\nexpected to weigh on the market for some weeks.<\/p>\n

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

The rand ZAR-D3, which has traded in a 8.60-8.80\/dollar
\nrange in the last week, weakened within that range to 8.70 by
\n1607 GMT. It closed at 8.64 in New York on Friday.<\/p>\n

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

Increasing South Africa’s debt stock, as laid out in the
\ncountry’s interim budget on Thursday, adds pressure to the
\ncountry’s credit rating, which has already been cut by Moody’s
\nand Standard and Poor’s in the last month.<\/p>\n

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

Adding pressure to the local currency was lack of U.S.
\ninterest because markets there were closed by Hurricane Sandy.<\/p>\n

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

“As long as there are concerns over the euro zone, Greece
\nand Spain, and while focus is on Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the
\nmarkets and the economy, it seems there is an adverse global
\nbackdrop,” said Anisha Arora from 4Cast.<\/p>\n

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

Arora added that a break of last Wednesday’s 8.82 rand was a
\nkey level to watch.<\/p>\n

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

Gordhan has pushed out his goal of a near-3 percent budget
\ndeficit from 2013\/14 announced two years ago to 2015\/16
\nannounced last week.<\/p>\n

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

Fitch ratings agency, the only agency yet to cut South
\nAfrica’s credit rating said “failure to deliver projected fiscal
\nconsolidation continues to erode one of the sovereign’s key
\nrating strengths compared with its peers,” which was part of the
\ncompany’s decision to put South Africa on negative watch in
\nJanuary.<\/p>\n

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

The market had priced in increased debt issuance. However
\nGordhan said he would plug the gap partly by drawing down on
\ngovernment’s cash reserves.<\/p>\n

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

Yields on government bonds ended up 1 basis point on the
\nthree-year note at 5.49 percent and steady at 7.77
\npercent on the 14-year paper, with trade volumes thin
\nwhile the U.S. market was closed.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Xola Potelwa. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOHANNESBURG Oct 29 (Reuters) – The rand weakened against the dollar on Monday, pressured by debt crisis concerns in the euro zone, South Africa’s biggest trading bloc, and worries about a wider domestic budget deficit. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan projected last week a wider budget shortfall for this year, while lower growth forecasts combined with […]<\/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-15962","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\/15962","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=15962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}