Rand loses as outlook stays negative

The domestic currency had strengthened as much as R9.72 to the dollar on Monday (12 August). It was being bid at R9.8597 to the dollar from Thursday's close of R9.7955. Against the euro‚ the rand was bid at R13.1050 from its previous close of R13.0680 and was at R15.2638 against sterling from R15.2224 at its previous close.

The euro was bid at US$1.3290 from US$1.3334 at last Thursday's close.

"Commodity prices and a weaker US dollar may encourage rand bulls but we think the outlook for the rand remains negative‚" Absa Capital analysts said in a note.

"The rand initially strengthened from just above R10 in the wake of July's disappointing US employment report at the beginning of the month‚ because the outcome created some doubts over whether the Federal Reserve would start tapering its quantitative easing measures by September. This ensured that emerging-market currencies benefited from a weaker US dollar environment.

"Rand bulls pressed home the advantage last week in response to encouraging Chinese data‚ while simultaneously ignoring the release of disappointing local manufacturing and mining data," the analyst said.

China's industrial production for July accelerated to 9.7% year-on-year from 8.9% year-on-year‚ above an 8.9% consensus estimate‚ while consumer inflation remained flat and producer inflation declined for the 17th consecutive month.