{"id":23052,"date":"2026-01-29T08:23:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-stretches-gains-before-central-bank-rate-decision\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:56","slug":"rand-stretches-gains-before-central-bank-rate-decision","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-stretches-gains-before-central-bank-rate-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand stretches gains before Central bank rate decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rand extended its recent strong gains against the Dollar on Thursday while traders awaited the South African (SA) Reserve Bank&#8217;s (SARB) first rate-setting meeting this year for signals on its monetary policy posture.<\/p>\n<p>The Rand traded at 15.7050 against the Dollar, roughly up 0.5% on Wednesday&#8217;s close and hovering around its strongest level in 3-1\/2 years.<\/p>\n<p>The currency has gained more than 5% against the Dollar so far this year.<\/p>\n<p>The greenback was flat against a basket of currencies while gold, a major SA export, stretched its blistering rally to hit a record just shy of $5 600 an ounce, as investors sought safety amid geopolitical and economic uncertainties.<\/p>\n<p>Eighteen of 26 analysts polled by\u00a0<em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>expect the SARB to leave its main lending rate unchanged at its meeting, while eight predicted a 25-basis-point rate cut to 6.50%.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the market was not convinced that the SARB would cut rates today, it should be this morning,&#8221; said ETM Analytics in a note, adding that low inflation outcomes and a strong local currency have opened the door for a January cut.<\/p>\n<p>Statistics SA will publish December domestic producer inflation figures, with analysts polled by\u00a0<em>Reuters<\/em>\u00a0expecting it to have remained steady at 2.9%.<\/p>\n<p>SA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond was stronger in early deals, as the yield fell 2 basis points to 8.04%.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13933,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23052","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"The Rand extended its recent strong gains against the Dollar","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23052","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\/23052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26146,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23052\/revisions\/26146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}