JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s rand was unchanged after slumping to a nine-month low early on Monday against a buoyant dollar, amid an uncertain outlook for further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
At 1505 GMT, the rand traded at its Friday closing level of 19.10 against the dollar. It hit 19.23 per dollar earlier in the day, its weakest level since late April.
The dollar was last trading about 0.2% stronger against a basket of currencies, after surging to its highest in over two years at the expense of emerging market currencies such as the rand.
Data on Friday showed U.S. job growth unexpectedly accelerated in December while the unemployment rate fell, underscoring the strength of the world’s largest economy and leaving traders heavily scaling back bets of Fed rate cuts in 2025.
Investors will on Wednesday look to U.S. inflation data for additional clues to the Fed’s interest rate path.
“The Federal Reserve could potentially halt its cycle of rate cuts later this month which will aid a stronger dollar, leading to further pressure on our local currency,” said Kavir Surujhlal, sales trader at IG Group.
On the stock market, the Top-40 index closed about 1.7% down.
South Africa’s benchmark 2030 government bond was weaker, with the yield up 7.5 basis points to 9.34%.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Tannur Anders;Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean)
