{"id":35331,"date":"2026-05-25T12:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=35331"},"modified":"2026-05-25T12:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:49:09","slug":"rand-coins-are-seen-in-this-illustration-picture","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-coins-are-seen-in-this-illustration-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand coins are seen in this illustration picture"},"content":{"rendered":"
The South African (SA) Rand strengthened in early trade on Monday supported by easing oil prices, as investors weighed the prospects \u200bof a breakthrough in United States (US) and Iran peace negotiations ahead of a local \u200cinterest rate decision later in the week.<\/div>\n
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Rand traded at 16.3375 against the Dollar, about 0.8% up from its previous close.<\/div>\n
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Oil prices \u200bhit two-week lows on Monday on optimism that the US and \u200bIran were moving closer towards a peace deal even though \u2060both countries remained at odds over key issues.<\/div>\n
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On Saturday, US \u200bPresident Donald Trump said Washington and Iran had “largely negotiated” an understanding on \u200ba peace deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas before the conflict.<\/div>\n
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Domestically \u200bfocused investor attention will be pinned on the Central bank’s \u200brate decision on Thursday.<\/div>\n
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Economists at Nedbank expect the monetary policy committee to raise interest \u200crates \u2060by 25 basis points, taking the repo rate to 7% and the prime rate to 10.50%.<\/div>\n
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“Our analysis suggests that inflation expectations are particularly sensitive to petrol price increases, and we therefore see a \u200brelatively high risk \u200bof second-round effects.<\/div>\n
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\u2060As such, tightening monetary policy now would ensure that the inflationary consequences of the supply-side shock are \u200btemporary and likely minimise the need for more \u200bsevere tightening \u2060later in the cycle,” the bank’s Economists said in a research note.<\/div>\n
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Economic indicators due this week include the composite leading business cycle indicator \u2060on \u200bTuesday, and producer inflation on Thursday.<\/div>\n
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SA’s benchmark 2035 government bond also strengthened in early deals, as the yield fell \u200b4.5 basis points to 8.635%.<\/div>\n
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–Reuters–<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-35331","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Rand strengthened in early trade on Monday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35331","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\/35331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35332,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35331\/revisions\/35332"}],"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=35331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}