The currency made some small initial gains overnight following President Cyril Ramaphosa's state of the nation speech on Thursday, before falling back again as offshore factors continued to overshadow local issues. The dollar's surge this week swept aside the risk appetite that had seen the rand rally for most of January all the way to 13.20, and it is now poised for a slide close to 14.00 per dollar as worries over global growth trump an easing in local constraints.
Meanwhile bonds were flat, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year paper down 0.5 basis points to 8.65 percent. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange slipped, with its top-40 index down 1.41 percent to 47,001 points and the broader all-share index down 1.2 percent to 53,244 points.