{"id":22029,"date":"2026-01-06T07:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-gains-on-softer-dollar-traders-eye-business-activity-pmi\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:07","slug":"rand-gains-on-softer-dollar-traders-eye-business-activity-pmi","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-gains-on-softer-dollar-traders-eye-business-activity-pmi\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand gains on softer Dollar, traders eye business activity PMI"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) Rand strengthened in early trade on Tuesday ahead of the release of a business conditions purchasing managers&#8217; index, as the United States (US) Dollar weakened following dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials that boosted interest rate-cut bets.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Rand traded at 16.3350 against the Dollar, up roughly 0.2% on Monday&#8217;s close.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Minneapolis Federal President Neel Kashkari said on Monday that inflation was slowly easing, but there was a risk the jobless rate could &#8220;pop&#8221; higher, increasing the likelihood of a rate cut.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Investors currently expect at least two US rate cuts this year, while they look to the non-farm payroll report, due on Friday, for more monetary policy cues.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Adam Phillips, Treasury specialist at Umkhulu Treasury, said in a research note that Kashkari&#8217;s comments were viewed as dovish by operators and that services and composite Purchasing Managers&#8217; Index (PMI) for December, being released in all major economies, could provide an even better indicator of the direction of monetary policy.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Domestic traders will also look to the \u00a0Standard &amp; Poor&#8217;s Global December whole-economy PMI for clues on business conditions in the country.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond was firm in early deals, as the yield fell 1.5 basis points to 8.19%.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-22029","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"SA Rand strengthened in early trade on Tuesday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22029","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\/22029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25466,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22029\/revisions\/25466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}