S. African rand steady in quiet market

The South African rand was steady against major currencies late Friday following a day of consolidation after a data-heavy week. Market analysts expected the rand to remain range bound going into the weekend.

The rand spiked to 7.30 per U.S. dollar on Thursday afternoon in the wake of news of South Africa's record 12.9 billion rand trade deficit in October, but soon recouped its losses due to dollar weakness.

At 15:43 (1343 GMT), the rand was bid at 7.1395 per dollar from an overnight close of 7.1497.

It was bid at 9.4548 to the euro from a previous 9.4853 and at 14.0483 against sterling from yesterday's 14.0452.

The rand was expected to remain in a 7.09 to 7.19 range for the rest of the day.

Source: Xinhua