{"id":23675,"date":"2026-02-12T10:20:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T08:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-softens-ahead-of-presidential-address-economic-data\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:26","slug":"rand-softens-ahead-of-presidential-address-economic-data","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-softens-ahead-of-presidential-address-economic-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand softens ahead of presidential address, economic data"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The South African (SA) Rand softened in early trade on Thursday as investors awaited statistics agency data and President Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s annual State of the Nation address to gain a clearer picture on the country&#8217;s economic and political outlook.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Rand traded at 15.8950 against the Dollar, down about 0.2% from Wednesday&#8217;s close, while the Dollar strengthened slightly against a basket of currencies.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ramaphosa&#8217;s second State of the Nation speech since his coalition government formed in June 2024 is due at 17:00 Central African Time.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>ETM Analytics said that while the government has much to celebrate, including improvements to the country&#8217;s fiscal position, a credit rating upgrade and smooth shift to a lower inflation target, a mounting water crisis remains the most urgent challenge.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Parts of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, have endured water outages for more than three weeks while experts warn of a looming drought in the Western Cape Province.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA&#8217;s statistics agency will publish December mining and manufacturing figures.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Top-40 index was little changed in early trade.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond strengthened, with the yield falling by 2.5 basis points to 7.93%.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23675","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"South African Rand softened in early trade on Thursday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23675","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\/23675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26570,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23675\/revisions\/26570"}],"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=23675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}