Rand remains in a narrow range against the Dollar

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa's rand edged firmer against the dollar on Tuesday and looked set to remain in a tight range, with no major local data releases which could provide direction and perhaps push the currency below the crucial 11.000/dlr mark.

At 0650 GMT the rand was 0.15 percent stronger to 11.0330 per dollar against a New York close of 11.0500.

In the previous session, the rand rallied more than half a percent against the greenback, lifted after minerals buyer China revealed a surprise up-tick in imports.

The currency failed to gather enough momentum to break past technical resistance towards the 10.96 level it achieved last week.

"The local unit … will likely be in limbo until tomorrow when retail sales and a deluge of U.S. data releases should reinvigorate trading activity," NKC Research said in a note to clients.

Statistics South Africa publishes retail sales figures for August on Wednesday at 1100 GMT.

Yields on government bonds were flat in morning trade, with the bench-mark paper due in 2026 unmoved at 8.065 percent following a 5.5 point drop in the previous session.