UPDATE 1-South Africa rand gains on economic growth recovery signs

  • Reuters
  • Forex News
UPDATE 1-South Africa rand gains on economic growth recovery signs

(Adds latest prices, analyst quotes)

JOHANNESBURG, March 9 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand recovered from a two-month low on Tuesday, lifted by investors moving into higher yielding currencies and slightly better than forecast economic growth figures.

The rand ZAR=D3 was up 1% to 15.3825 against the dollar at 1545 GMT, after slipping to 15.5700 on Monday in a broad emerging market sell-off sparked by rising U.S. Treasury yields.

With these moderating, traders turned to higher yielding currencies such as the rand which stand to benefit further from loose monetary policy in developed markets. Africa's gross domestic product expanded by 6.3% quarter-on-quarter on an annualised basis, while an annual contraction of 7% was not as bad as forecast. figures show the benefit of the global economy also opening up, paving the way for better growth entering into 2021," said chief economist at Citadel Maarten Ackerman.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) neared an all-time peak hit last week, with gold miners and banks leading gains.

The benchmark FTSE/JSE all-share index .JALSH ended 0.34% higher to 68,656 points. The bluechip top-40 companies index .JTOPI closed 0.3% higher to 63,098 points.

Higher global gold prices lifted the local bullion miners' index .JGLDX , which rose 5% to exceed a one-month peak.

Banks, sensitive to South Africa's growth outlook, gained, with the index of local lenders .JBANK up by 1.5%.

Add Chart to Comment

Comment Guidelines

We encourage you to use comments to engage with users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind: 

  • Enrich the conversation
  • Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
  • Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically.
  •  Use standard writing style. Include punctuation and upper and lower cases.
  • NOTE: Spam and/or promotional messages and links within a comment will be removed
  • Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user.
  • Don’t Monopolize the Conversation. We appreciate passion and conviction, but we also believe strongly in giving everyone a chance to air their thoughts. Therefore, in addition to civil interaction, we expect commenters to offer their opinions succinctly and thoughtfully, but not so repeatedly that others are annoyed or offended. If we receive complaints about individuals who take over a thread or forum, we reserve the right to ban them from the site, without recourse.
  • Only English comments will be allowed.

Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.

Drop an image here or Supported formats: *.jpg, *.png, *.gif up to 5mb

Error: File type not supported

Drop an image here or

100
Please try another search