Rand remains softer at noon
17 August 2012
The rand maintained a softer bias at noon on Friday‚ with market players choosing to focus on the potential spillover effects of the Lonmin’s violence into other mining companies.
Mark Kalkwarf‚ senior portfolio manager at Iquad Group‚ said the local currency decoupled from the euro/US dollar strength after German’s chancellor Angela Merkel became the latest eurozone high profile to approve of some stimulus measures for the euro.
At 12.16pm local time the rand was bid at R8.2909 to the dollar from Thursday’s close of R8.2198.
It was bid at R10.2409 to the euro from its previous close of R10.1558 and at R13.0059 against sterling from R12.9241 before.
The euro was bid at US$1.2363 from $1.2355.
