{"id":37128,"date":"2026-06-15T11:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=37128"},"modified":"2026-06-15T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:47:21","slug":"rand-strengthens-on-us-iran-deal-inflation-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-strengthens-on-us-iran-deal-inflation-in-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand strengthens on US, Iran deal inflation in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\">The South African (SA) Rand strengthened in early trade on Monday, with the United States (US) Dollar weakening \u200bafter US and Iranian officials said they had \u200creached an initial agreement to end their war.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The Rand traded at 16.1725 against the Dollar, about 0.8% \u200bup from its previous close.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The US and Iran framework is \u200blikely to lift the US blockade of Iranian \u2060ports and see Iran reopening the Strait of \u200bHormuz. The US Dollar weakened to a 10-day low against \u200bits major peers on Monday.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Gold climbed 2.5% on Monday, hitting its highest level since June 9 and extending gains for a third \u200bstraight session.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Statistics SA will release May inflation on Wednesday, with analysts polled by Reuters expecting it to \u200caccelerate \u2060to 4.7% year-on-year, from 4% in April.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Economists from Nedbank expect headline inflation to accelerate to 5.1% in May, its highest level since June 2024, from 4% \u200bin April.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;The main \u200bdriver will \u2060again be a sharp increase in transport costs, reflecting a surge in fuel \u200bprices,&#8221; the bank&#8217;s economists said in a \u200bresearch note.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Traders \u2060will also watch retail sales data, due on Wednesday, for further clues on the health of Africa&#8217;s biggest \u2060economy.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">S\u200bA&#8217;s benchmark 2035 government bond \u200bwas stronger in early deals, as the yield fell 10.5 basis points \u200bto 8.4%.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-37128","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":"SA Rand strengthened in early trade on Monday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37128","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\/37128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37129,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37128\/revisions\/37129"}],"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=37128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}