Money SA economy
The South African rand was slightly softer against the dollar by midday on Thursday, largely due to the US dollar gains across the board.
Rand softness actually started on Wednesday afternoon, when the local unit weakened around 10 cents despite a stronger euro on the day. At 12.05pm the rand was bid at R7.36 to the dollar, R9.96 to the euro and R11.33 to the pound. The euro was bid at $1.3530 from $1.3655 previously.
A local trader said the dollar had made good gains across all the major currencies on Thursday morning, and that was contributing to rand weakness.
Dow Jones Newswires reported a further improvement in global markets sentiment, on the back of strong economic data and higher equity prices, is failing to help the euro in Europe Thursday.
Instead, the single currency is sinking once again on concerns that Greece will fail to meet its debt obligations given the recent high funding costs it has faced at auction.
The improvement in global sentiment has been driven by the sharper than expected rise in U.S. retail sales data on Wednesday and news from China on Thursday that first quarter growth amounted to 11.9% on the year, even higher than the 11.5% that had been expected.
