Rand firms in afternoon trade

The rand firmed in afternoon trade on Wednesday after tracking a stronger euro against the greenback, which has begun to buckle under increasing amounts of disappointing economic data.

At 3.28pm local time the rand was bid at R7.31 to the dollar, R9.39 to the euro and R11.30 to the pound. The euro was bid at $1.2834 from $1.2685 overnight.

A local dealer said: "We are seeing selling interest at 7.30-32 against the dollar. A strengthening euro has put the dollar under pressure, along with some weak US data."

Dow Jones Newswires reports that the dollar slumped against its higher-yielding peers Wednesday after better-than-expected global manufacturing data encouraged investors to dip into currencies closely tied to global growth.

Weaker-than-expected US jobs data reported early Wednesday failed to dent positive investor sentiment, which sent the Australian dollar soaring nearly 1.75% against the dollar and the euro up more than 1.2% against the US currency.

"Today's [U.S. jobs] news kind of lends itself to a US-specific kind of underperformance, an almost US unique problem," said Chris Turner, head of foreign exchange strategy at ING Financial Markets in London.