STOCKS AND MARKETS

THE RAND retreated from a six-week peak on Friday, taking a breather after dovish signals from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) spurred a rally in riskier assets.

At 5pm the rand traded at R14.59 against the dollar, about 0.38 percent weaker than its previous close. It had rallied to R14.4475 on Thursday, its strongest since February 24, but again failed to hold below the R14.50 psychological level.

“That the ZAR was not able to use this momentum to gain against the greenback suggests speculator sentiment towards the local unit remains somewhat cautious,” said economists at ETM Analytics.

“Most of its recent resilience and relative strength rooted in real trade flows rather than a more positive outlook on South Africa’s reform prospects.”

Most emerging market currencies rose last week on weakness in the dollar and US treasury yields, especially after minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting showed that the bank was in no hurry to tighten monetary policy.

Lower US interest rate expectations boost investor appetite for emerging markets assets, such as the rand, which offer higher returns but carry more risk.

Government bonds also weakened, with the yield on the benchmark instrument due in 2030 up 11.5 basis points at 9.335 percent.

In the equities market, JSE all share index gained 0.2 percent at 67 191.27 points, while the Top40 index advanced 0.25 percent to 61 458.47 points, tracking gains in global stocks which hit record highs on Friday.

The third top gainer was investment company RMB Holdings which gained 7.69 percent to R1.82 after it said it would be returning capital committed to the development of a new hub for business to shareholders as a special dividend as conditions for that development were not met by the March 31 deadline.