JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The South African rand was little changed on Tuesday, a day after sinking in a sharp global selloff linked to advances by Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek.
At 1314 GMT, the rand traded at 18.69 against the dollar, not far from its previous close, after losing roughly 1.7% on Monday.
DeepSeek’s advances have made investors question lofty valuations for major U.S. technology and AI companies and drove steep falls in global equities on Monday, which turned into a widespread flight to safety.
Analysts said heightened rand volatility in recent days could complicate the South African central bank’s thinking ahead of a local interest rate decision on Thursday.
In a Reuters poll published last week, all 19 economists surveyed thought the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) would cut its repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.50% this week.
“If they (the SARB) needed a reminder of the fragility of the rand, then they just got it, and now the decision to reduce rates further at this meeting could amplify the rand’s volatility,” ETM Analytics said in a research note.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s Top-40 index was up about 0.2%.
The yield on the benchmark 2030 government bond was down 9 basis points to 9.045% after a sharp move higher on Monday.
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov;Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Bernadette Baum)
