Rand falls on lower risk appetite

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s rand gave up some ground against the dollar on Friday, largely reflecting a dip in investors’ appetite for risk, while stocks fell across the board, tracking lower world markets.

At at close of business on Friday the rand was trading at 7,5995 against the dollar, down 0,79 per cent from Thursday’s close of 7,54.’We’ve basically seen a small sell-off in rand on the back of a little bit of risk aversion that we’ve seen in the last two days of trading,’ said RMB trader Brigid Taylor.’We’ve seen stocks come off and we’ve also seen the dollar strengthen across the board against the currencies.Trading had recently been marked by healthy risk appetite at the start of last week, which tended to taper off towards the end, Taylor said.’I think as we start heading into the end of the year, we’re going to see this kind of pattern become much more prominent as guys start to take back profits, especially with the significant (rand) rally we’ve seen this year,’ she added.The central bank, finance ministry and trade unions have all warned the rand’s gains of more than 20 per cent against the dollar this year could hurt the economy, but the government has stressed it will stick to a free floating exchange rate.-Nampa-Reuters