{"id":35424,"date":"2026-05-26T11:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T09:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=35424"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:00:09","slug":"35424","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/35424\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand slips on Iran uncertainty ahead of key Central bank data"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) Rand edged lower in early Tuesday trading, weighed down by high oil prices as hopes for a \u200bdeal to end the Iran conflict remained uncertain, while central \u200cbank data was expected to provide insight into the economic outlook.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Rand traded at 16.3375 against the Dollar, about 0.3% down from \u200bits previous close.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Brent crude futures rose 2%, as a deal to \u200bend the war and open up the Strait of Hormuz \u2060remained elusive.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiating a deal \u200bwith Iran could &#8220;take a few days,&#8221; quashing hopes for an imminent end \u200bto the conflict after US forces conducted what Washington called defensive strikes in southern Iran.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The SA Reserve Bank will publish the \u200bcountry&#8217;s leading business cycle indicator for March, which collects data \u200bon vehicle sales, business confidence, money supply and other factors.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In February the leading indicator improved \u200cmarginally, \u2060rising to 120.2 points from 119.6 points in January.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The continued increase in the leading indicator suggests that, prior to recent developments, the domestic economy was on track for another year of improved economic \u200bgrowth,&#8221; said ETM \u200bAnalytics in a \u2060research note.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;However, supporting factors are now reversing inflation is rising sharply, interest rates are likely to increase, \u200bgold prices have slipped back, the fiscal outlook \u200bis expected \u2060to deteriorate, and economic growth in 2026 will likely be weaker,&#8221; ETM Analytics added.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA Central bank will announce its interest rate decision \u2060on \u200bThursday and economists polled by\u00a0<em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>anticipate \u200ba 25-basis point hike.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13745,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-35424","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Rand edged lower in early Tuesday trading","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":"SA Rand edged lower in early Tuesday trading"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35424","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35428,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35424\/revisions\/35428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}