South Africa’s shorter-dated R153 bond bolted ahead during the morning session to register gains of 14 basis points on continued bouts of short covering.
By 12:20 the short-term government R153 bond was at 8.920% from its previous close of 9.060%. The medium-term R157 was at 8.660% from 8.730% at Tuesday’s close and the long-term R186 was bid at 8.445% from 8.490% before.
The rand was last at 10.2844 per dollar from a previous close of 10.2100.
A local bond trader said the strength was driven by the short end of the curve, but that the rand and the US open would be monitored during the afternoon session.
"Someone is pushing the R153 and then you get a bit of panic when people get short," he explained.
Foreigners were net buyers of 2.336 billion rand worth of South African bonds on Tuesday after net sales of 1.453 billion rand worth of local bonds on Monday, Bond Exchange of South Africa statistics show.
Nominal cumulative volume was 194.625 billion rand on Tuesday from 52.702 billion rand on Monday. |
