Rand slightly up at noon

The rand was slightly firmer but remained range bound on Wednesday morning, with little fresh news to offer direction.

A trader said that if the euro manages to break $1.2920, then the local unit could move firmer. At noon local time the rand was bid at R7.22 to the dollar, R9.33 to the euro and R11.33 to the pound. The euro was bid at $1.2896 from $1.2877 overnight.
Local retail sales at 11:30 had little impact. South African retail trade sales at constant (2008) prices for June increased 7.4% year-on-year (y/y) after a revised 4.5% (4.6%) growth in May, figures from Statistics South Africa showed.

A survey of leading economists by I-Net Bridge had expected retail trade sales to increase to 7.4% y/y.

Seasonally adjusted retail trade sales rose 1.8% in June 2010 compared with May 2010. This followed month-on-month changes of 1.3% in May 2010 and -0.2% in April in 2010.

Dow Jones Newswires reported fragile investor confidence in the global economy left the euro with only small gains Wednesday, despite an earlier recovery in risk sentiment.

The pound was helped up from its lows after the Bank of England published its latest minutes showing that the monetary policy committee still voted 8-to-1 to leave rates unchanged at 0.5%.