{"id":23908,"date":"2026-02-18T07:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-flat-ahead-of-local-data\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:39","slug":"rand-flat-ahead-of-local-data","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-flat-ahead-of-local-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand flat ahead of local data"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The South African (SA) Rand was muted in early trade on Wednesday, as traders awaited inflation data, retail sales data and a business confidence index that will shed light on the country&#8217;s economic outlook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Rand traded at 16.0125 against the Dollar, little changed from its previous close of 16.0175.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Domestically focused traders are waiting for January consumer inflation data and November retail sales.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Economists polled by <i>Reuters<\/i>\u00a0expect annual inflation will come in at 3.4% for January, down from 3.6%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Investec economist Lara Hodes said inflation is projected to have lifted by a modest 0.2% in January, translating to 3.5% y\/y.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Nedbank economists forecast consumer price inflation to remain unchanged at 3.6% in January citing upward pressure from food inflation, driven by elevated meat prices reflecting the continued impact of foot-and-mouth disease.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Then, for insight on private sector sentiment, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry will release its business confidence index.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">SA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond was also flat in early deals, with the yield at 7.195%<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23908","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"SA Rand was muted in early trade on Wednesday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23908","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\/23908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26740,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23908\/revisions\/26740"}],"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=23908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}