The rand held relatively steady against major currencies in late trade‚ with the fallout of Lonmin’s Marikana mine shooting incident still hanging on the rand’s performance‚ analysts said.
At 4pm local time the rand was bid at R8.3144 to the dollar from Friday’s close of R8.3127 and Thursday’s close of R8.2198. It was bid at R10.2394 to the euro from its previous close of R10.2651 and at R13.0405 against sterling from R13.0463 before.
The euro was bid at US$1.2317 from $1.2337.
“Investors are worried that the Lonmin violence spills over to other mines‚ which could affect the entire mining environment in SA. This would obviously be bad for mining production and therefore exports‚ thus the negativity towards the rand currently‚” said Mark Kalkwarf‚ a portfolio manager at Iquad. - I-Net Bridge