The South African rand recouped earlier losses against the U.S. dollar in afternoon trade on Friday after soft GDP data sparked a sell-off in the U.S. currency.

At 15:54 (1354 GMT), the rand was bid at 6.8682 per dollar from an overnight close of 6.82 on Thursday, 6.94 on Wednesday and 7. 0045 on Tuesday.

It was bid at 8.7559 to the euro from a previous 8.6780 and at 12.8067 against sterling from Thursday's 12.6805.

"The rand strengthened on the back of the worse-than-expected U. S. GDP numbers," a currency trader was quoted as saying by an I- Net Bridge report. "The dollar did weaken. Expectations are becoming less and less that the Fed will hike rates in the next two weeks."

The dollar slumped against major currencies after key data released this afternoon revealed that U.S. economic growth in the second quarter was much weaker than expected.

Source: Xinhua