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Rand steady, stocks set to open higher

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July 7, 2016 2:20 PM

At 0645 GMT, the rand traded at 14.7570 per dollar, largely unchanged from its New York close on Wednesday.

South African rand notes in a file photo. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

South Africa's rand steadied early on Thursday as upbeat U.S. economic data and expectations that the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates subdued global fears over the impact of Britain's eventual departure from the European Union.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve's June policy meeting released on Wednesday showed that policymakers had decided to keep interest rate hikes on hold as they assessed the impact of Brexit.

"The U.S. economic outlook and data is slowly starting to replace Brexit as the main market focus," Rand Merchant Bank analyst John Cairns said in a note.

"A strong service sector ISM (Institute for Supply Management) figure combined with dovish Fed minutes were certainly helpful in stopping the global market weakness yesterday and in generating the small risk-on bounce."

Investors were now awaiting key U.S. non-farm payrolls numbers due on Friday.

Stocks were set to open higher at 0700 GMT, with the JSE securities exchange's Top-40 futures index up 0.78 percent.

In fixed income, the yield for the benchmark instrument due in 2026 dipped 5 basis points to 8.76 percent.

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