JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's rand weakened against the dollar on Monday as the greenback made broad-based gains, recovering from almost four-month lows reached last week on another bad round of U.S. economic data.
At 1501 GMT the local unit, which touched two-week highs on Friday, shed 0.54 percent to 11.8475 per dollar compared with its closing 11.7800 in New York on Friday.
The dollar gained against the basket of major currencies in a market eyeing the U.S. inflation numbers which could push the greenback higher if the numbers come out better than expected.
"This is a dollar move. Today looks like there's more demand for dollars. It has been relatively cheap compared to what we saw last week," said Ion de Vleeschauwer, a chief dealer at Bidvest Bank.
"There's no real data out today but from Wednesday onwards we're going to see more data out and probably that will give the rand a bit more direction."
Locally traders will be looking at this week's release of domestic retail and inflation data, as well as a decision by the Monetary Policy Committee on interest rates.
The Reserve Bank is likely to leave the repo interest rate unchanged at 5.75 percent on Thursday, according to economists polled by Reuters .
Government bonds were mostly down, with the benchmark instrument due in 2026 shedding 7.5 basis points to 8.050 percent.
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