The rand, along with its emerging market peers, continued on the front foot on Wednesday morning and gained more than 1% against the dollar to reach its best level in over four months.
By late morning, the local unit had gained 1.10% to trade at R16.82 to the dollar, its best level since late September. It gained 0.23% to change hands at R20.31 to the pound and was up 0.36% at R17.88 to the euro.
At 16:57, the rand was still trading around the R16.82 mark.
The JSE eked out a small gain of 0.18% with the All Share Index at 74,568 points.
Asian and European stocks ticked up while the American indexes also turned green with positive news on inflation and China’s covid policies boosting sentiment. Investors are waiting for the latest minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s meeting, which are due out later Wednesday.
In December, the Fed cautioned that interest rate hikes would continue and needed to stay higher for longer to combat rising inflation.
Investors will also have their eyes on the latest US unemployment report, which is due on Friday for an indication of the American labour market.
A weaker jobs market is seen as key for the Fed to slow down its monetary policy tightening.
At 5 pm, France’s CAC 40, Germany’s DAX and the UK’s FTSE 100 added 2.21%, 2.02% and 0.40% respectively.
In Asia, the Hong Kong Hang Seng added 3.22%, the Shanghai Composite is up 0.22% while Japan’s Nikkei bucked the trend, dropping 1.45%.
Over in the US, the Nasdaq (0.38%), S&P 500 (0.42%), and Dow Jones (0.30%) are all in the green.
