{"id":20548,"date":"2025-12-05T09:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T07:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/18400\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:51","slug":"18400","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/18400\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand strengthens on narrower current account deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The South African (SA) Rand strengthened in early trade on Friday, continuing its break below the 17 0000 handle as the smaller than expected current account deficit eased pressure on the rand and the government issued Dollar-denominated Eurobonds for the first time since 2024.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The Rand traded at 16.9350 against the Dollar\u00a0, about 0.4% stronger than its previous close.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;The Rand pushed through the psychological 17.00 yesterday, it was helped by the Q3 current account deficit being lower than the previous quarter.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Any improvement helps our terms of trade,&#8221; said Adam Phillips, treasury specialist at Umkhulu\u00a0Treasury.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">SA&#8217;s current account deficit narrowed to 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter from 1.0% of GDP in the second quarter.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Deutsche Bank announced in a notice on the London Stock Exchange that the initial price guidance is in the 6.625% to 7.750% range for both the 12-year and 30-year bonds.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Johann Els, Chief Economist\u00a0at PSG Financial Services, said this was one of the main contributors to the stronger Rand.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Investors turned their attention to SA&#8217;s net foreign reserves, which rose to $70.024 billion at the end of November from $69.364 billion in October, central bank data showed on Friday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">SA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond was firmer in early deals, as the yield fell 1.5 basis points to 8.31%.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13745,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-20548","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Rand strengthened in early trade on Friday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24544,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20548\/revisions\/24544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}