South African bonds were little changed from Friday’s closing levels in extremely quiet trade, paying scant attention to a softer rand.
By noon the short-term government R153 bond was at 8.265% from its previous close of 8.270%. The medium-term R157 was at 8.285%, unchanged from Friday’s close and the long-term R186 was at 8.255% from 8.250% before.
The rand was last at 10.2507 to the dollar from a previous close of 10.0855.
Traders said the bond market was exceptionally quiet, with little fresh news to move the market. With little in the way of major local economic data due this week, bond players are eyeing the Monetary Policy Committee meeting next week.
"After that we will probably pack our bags and go on holiday," a trader said earlier.
Bonds, however, were shrugging off the weaker rand, which has given up around 18 cents on Monday morning as emerging market currencies came under renewed pressure on geopolitical tensions.
Foreigners were net sellers of 4.169 billion rand worth of South African bonds on Friday after net sales of 969.995 million rand worth of local bonds on Thursday, Bond Exchange of South Africa statistics show.
Nominal cumulative volume was 57.543 billion rand on Friday from 41.653 billion rand on Thursday. |
