{"id":8182,"date":"2012-02-21T14:21:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T12:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/south-african-assets-steady-in-pre-budget-trade\/"},"modified":"2012-02-21T14:21:18","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T12:21:18","slug":"south-african-assets-steady-in-pre-budget-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/south-african-assets-steady-in-pre-budget-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"South African assets steady in pre-budget trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Foreign demand strong at long-end of bond curve<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Traders cautious ahead of budget, deficit seen<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Feb 21 (Reuters) &#8211; The rand was steady<br \/>\nand government bonds edged up slightly on Tuesday, with market<br \/>\nplayers reluctant to take significant positions a day ahead of<br \/>\nFinance Minister Pravin Gordhan&#8217;s budget presentation.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Economists polled by Reuters expect Gordhan on Wednesday to<br \/>\ntarget a deficit of 5.4 percent of GDP for the 2012\/13 fiscal<br \/>\nyear from an estimated 5.3 percent in 2011\/12 as the government<br \/>\nramps up spending on infrastructure and social services.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But government bonds have held up well despite the<br \/>\nlikelihood of increased issuance, partly supported by foreigners<br \/>\nattracted by higher South African yields that are much higher<br \/>\nthan the near-zero rates in the United States and Europe.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The yield on the benchmark three-year bond was one<br \/>\nbasis point lower at 6.59 percent in early Tuesday trade while<br \/>\nthat on the 14-year issue dipped 1.5 basis points to<br \/>\n8.215 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Treasury was due to sell a total of 2.1 billion rand<br \/>\n($274.1 million) worth of the 2018, 2021 and<br \/>\n2041 bonds at a weekly auction closing at 0900 GMT.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This year, non-residents have been particularly fond of<br \/>\nR208 scrip, with 7.4 billion rand worth of net purchases, which<br \/>\nhas contributed to the proportionately greater compression of<br \/>\nyields at the belly of the yield curve,&#8221; Absa Capital said in a<br \/>\nnote.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We doubt this week will be any different in an environment<br \/>\nwhere risk is being added to portfolios and South African scrip<br \/>\nis still offering a relatively attractive pickup.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Foreign demand strong at long-end of bond curve * Traders cautious ahead of budget, deficit seen JOHANNESBURG Feb 21 (Reuters) &#8211; The rand was steady and government bonds edged up slightly on Tuesday, with market players reluctant to take significant positions a day ahead of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan&#8217;s budget presentation. Economists polled by [&hellip;]<\/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-8182","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\/8182","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=8182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}