JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's rand firmed against the U.S. dollar for a third straight day on Thursday, boosted by positive emerging market sentiment after the U.S. federal reserve suggested interest rate hikes were some way off.
At 1535 GMT, the rand was 0.69 percent firmer at 11.5280 against the greenback, having rallied more than 1 percent earlier in the session.
"What we are seeing in dollar/rand today is very much correlated to the improvement in the risk appetite that we have across markets," said Murat Toprak, forex strategist at HSBC in London.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had said on Wednesday that it was unlikely to hike rates for "at least a couple of meetings", meaning April of next year at the earliest.
Government bonds also recovered with the yield on the benchmark 2026 paper falling 13 basis points to 7.980 percent.
Bonds were also boosted by favourable local producer price inflation (PPI). Data showed PPI slowed to 6.5 percent year-on-year in November from 6.7 percent in October.
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