Rand recovers against pound as BoE keeps rates unchanged

06 August 2015 - 19:20 By Maarten Mittner
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The rand firmed against the pound in the late afternoon on Thursday as the local currency also held on to firmer levels against the dollar.

The rand weakened through R20/£ for the first time ever on Wednesday but was due for a correction‚ analysts said.

The Bank of England (BoE) left rates unchanged at 0.5% at its meeting on Thursday. It downgraded the inflation outlook and reiterated that the future path of rates remained highly data dependent.

At 3.33pm the rand was at R19.8153 against the pound from R19.9498. It earlier reached a best intraday level of R19.7330.

The rand was R12.7480 to the dollar from a previous close of R12.7859. On Wednesday afternoon the local unit weakened as far as R12.80 to the dollar.

Against the euro the rand was at R13.9028 from a previous close of R13.9433.

The euro was at $1.0905 from $1.0906.

Standard Bank trader Warrick Butler said importers of UK goods and services had some hope that a corrective move would occur.

"It is possible the rand could move back to around R18.80/£ over the coming days‚" he said.

Rand/dollar traders are awaiting the release of nonfarm payroll data in the US on Friday‚ which will provide further indication of when an expected US interest rate hike this year is set to happen.

"Markets are expected to remain in a wait-and-see mode ahead of tomorrow’s all-important US employment data‚" Barclays Research said in a note.

- BDlive

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