South Africa’s rand was flat on Friday, holding on to some gains made in the previous session on bets that the country’s central bank will hike interest rates early this year.

Investors waited to see whether United States jobs data due later in the day would reinforce the need for faster U.S. interest rate hikes.

Rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve typically drain capital from emerging markets (EM), increasing EM governments and companies’ borrowing costs and hurting their debt repayment abilities and currencies.

At 0615 GMT, the rand traded at 15.7300 against the dollar, unchanged from its previous close.

On Thursday, the rand hit its strongest in more than a week on local rate hike expectations, bucking a trend for weakness in some other emerging market currencies.

In fixed income, the yield on the benchmark 2030 maturity was down 1.5 basis points to 9.415%, reflecting firmer bond prices.

Reuters

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