The rand held its own in afternoon trade after having made a slight recovery on Thursday morning. The PPI numbers released earlier had little impact on the currency, while the eurozone debt crisis continues to affect markets.
SA’s April producer inflation reading came in at a lower than expected 6.6% from 7.2% in March, Statistics SA data showed.
PPI was up 0.3% on the month, while export inflation rose 5.3% on the year, but went down 0.2% on the month.
“The market is keeping an eye on any news coming out of Europe. The PPI was slightly lower than expected but didn’t really move the market,” a local trade said.
At 11:44 the rand was bid at R8.5026 the dollar from Wednesday’s close of 8.5376, it was bid at R10.5630 to the euro from Wednesday’s close of R10.5564 and at R13.1859 against sterling from R13.2046 at Wednesday’s close. The euro was bid at US$1.2424 from Wednesday’s close of $1.2368.
“Yesterday just showed how much we depended on the euro. We are so tied with it that any bad news in Europe will affect South African markets. I think its more of the same today unless the euro finds some traction,” the trader added.
Meanwhile, Dow Jones Newswires reported that Asian markets finished the month bruised after concerns over the health of the Spanish banking system pushed stocks down across the region on Thursday, with Australia and Japan recording their worst month in two years.
“The phrase 'sell in May and go away' was probably one of the best investment moves you could have made,” said Singapore-based Justin Harper, a market strategist at IG Markets. “The rapid way in which the gains of the first quarter have been wiped off has surprised people.”
Investors rushed to safety in Asia as concerns grew over the health of the Spanish banking system, which briefly pushed Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index into negative territory for 2012, before markets trimmed their losses as the day progressed.
Trading in Asia followed the sharp falls in European and US markets as yields on Spain's 10-year bonds reached as high as 6.65%, close to the levels that drove Greece, Portugal and Ireland to bailouts.
The sell-off came as the Spanish government said it would auction treasury bonds to raise cash for the bailout of beleaguered local bank, Bankia. Retail and corporate deposits in Spanish banks dropped to the lowest level since the eurozone debt crisis started, according to the European Central Bank. - I-Net Bridge