rand slipping against dollar affecting prices

South African soybeans, wheat and yellow corn rose as a weaker currency neutralized lower prices in the U.S.

The most active soybean contract, for delivery in December, rose 0.5 percent to 5,600 rand ($640) a metric ton in Johannesburg, while the commodity lost 0.6 percent to $15.40 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade by 12:28 p.m.

The rand declined 1.3 percent, the most since Oct. 5, to 8.7542 a dollar.
“Soybeans were down substantially in Chicago,” Brink van Wyk, a trader at BVG (Pty) Ltd, said by phone from Pretoria. “The rand neutralized this movement.”

The price of soybeans in Chicago declined after a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showed that 80 percent of the current harvest was collected by Oct. 21 compared with an average of 69 percent from 2007 to 2011.

Wheat is trading at import parity, or the price paid to deliver it in South Africa, Van Wyk said. The most actively traded contract, for delivery in December, rose for the fourth day, gained 0.4 percent to 3,611 rand a ton.

Yellow corn, used mainly as animal feed, rose 0.1 percent to 2,539 rand a ton. White corn, which is a staple in South Africa, declined for a second day, losing 0.8 percent to 2,509 rand a ton with 2,032 contracts bought and sold.

“Speculators are busy in the white corn market,” Van Wyk said. “They can get in and out of the market as there are large volumes of contracts.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jaco Visser in Johannesburg at avisser3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net

Source : bloomberg.com
Tags : rand, rand strength, weak rand, rand vs dollar, rand exchange, soybeans prices, wheat prices, corn prices, south africa economy

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Weak rand effects on SA economy

Johannesburg - South Africa's rand remained near a 3½ year low on Monday and analysts said it could weaken further in the absence of a resolution to a wave of strikes roiling Africa's biggest economy.

The rand was trading at 8.800 to the dollar at 0701 GMT on Monday, barely changed from Friday's New York close of 8.7900.On Friday, it slumped to as low as 8.85 to the dollar, its weakest level since April 2009, after Anglo American Platinum said it had fired 12,000 wildcat strikers.

Currency

Analysts said the rand could weaken to as low as 9.00 to the dollar unless measures were taken to limit some of the worst labour unrest since the end of apartheid in 1994.

"The market is trading purely on emotion and sentiment," said Garth Klintworth, head of fixed income, commodities and currencies at Absa Capital."Either we get some strong leadership from trade unions or government or business that improves sentiment or we continue to see very poor sentiment and weakness relative to the dollar.

Technically, we could easily get to 9.20."Government bonds continued to sell off on Monday, with the yield on the 2015 bond up 8 basis points to 5.51 percent. That on the 2026 paper was 15 basis points higher at 7.81 percent, its highest level since July. - Reuters

Source : iol.co.za
Tags : rand, rand strength, weak rand, currency news

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