South Africa's rand steady, U.S. jobs data in focus

Pulse Staff 07:08 - 08 May 2015

South African Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus shows off South Africa's new banknotes, which features an image of former president Nelson Mandela on the front and images of the country's "Big Five" wild animals on the reverse, before conducting the fi...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand was steady against the dollar early on Friday, with investors cautious ahead of U.S. jobs data which may support expectations of a rate hike by the Federal Reserve later this year.

The local unit largely brushed off domestic data that showed showing net gold and foreign exchange reserves rose to $41.934 billion in April from $41.275 billion in March.

At 0820 GMT the rand was trading at 12.0525 to the dollar, not far off its Thursday closing level of 12.0405.

"The rand is in a place where confidence in direction is low and positioning is possibly lower," said Warrick Butler, a currency trader at Standard Bank, in a market note.

"Today’s ever-important U.S payrolls data could be a watershed moment. A day of general malaise may be in order as the market awaits this afternoon’s data."

In fixed income, the yield for the 2026 benchmark was flat at 8.09 percent.