Rand steady ahead of local inflation data

The rand was steady on Wednesday morning ahead of the release of local inflation data.

At 8.20am‚ the rand was at R12.8900 against the dollar from a previous close of R12.9049.

Against the euro the rand was at R14.2549 from a previous close of R14.2292. Against the pound‚ the rand was at R20.2013 from R20.2090.

The euro was at $1.1060 from $1.1026.

Statistics SA will release consumer price index (CPI) data for July at 10am.

Inflation‚ as measured by the CPI‚ is expected to have accelerated to 5% year on year in July from 4.7% in June‚ according to a median consensus forecast from a BDlive survey of 12 economists.

Forecasts ranged between 4.7% and 5.2%.

"Today‚ we are slightly above consensus regarding domestic CPI inflation. We highlight that after the May reading‚ which also printed slightly above consensus‚ the rand’s response was very subdued‚" Barclays Research said in an early morning note.

On the international front‚ the US will also release data on its core inflation later in the afternoon‚ while minutes from the last Federal open market committee meeting will be released on Wednesday night.

The research team said it expected investors to ignore both the US CPI and minutes as neither were expected to contain "any major surprises".

- BDlive