JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s rand was stable against the dollar early on Monday while bond yields hovered near 20-month lows, as emerging markets continued to benefit from the European Central Bank’s larger-than-expected stimulus package.
On the local front, traders and investors awaited Thursday’s interest rate decision, with all 37 economists surveyed by Reuters last week predicting the Reserve Bank would hold interest rates at 5.75 percent.
On Monday, the yield on the 2026 benchmark revisited last week’s low of 7.135 percent, a level last seen in late May 2013, and was down 3 basis points at 7.14 percent at 0655 GMT compared to Friday’s close.
The rand was changing hands at 11.4210 to the greenback, where it ended the previous session in New York.
The currency had rallied to 7 week highs last week after the ECB said it buy 60 billion euro ($67.28 billion) worth of assets each month to try and stimulate growth in the euro zone.
While there was little expectation that South Africa’s own central bank would change policy on Thursday, the market would be on the look out for downward adjustments to inflation forecasts, Standard Bank dealer Warrick Butler said.
“This will be a solid indication that they believe the hiking cycle they embarked on last year has ended and that the next move in the local repo rate could in fact be lower,” he said.
($1 = 0.8917 euros)
(Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by James Macharia)
