Trading updates from heavyweights such as SABMiller and Richemont are likely to direct a busier South African stock market this week, fund managers said, but the rand will still also hold sway.
Dealers are hoping for a hike in trading volumes as the last few holidaying asset managers return to their desks and the corporate reporting season kicks off in earnest.
This could help dampen the effect of a volatile rand, which has been exacerbated in the past few weeks by paper-thin turnover.
"As volumes increase we might see some downside as the market has run quite hard," said Neels van Schaik of PSG Fund Management, adding: "But this short-term consolidation might offer some buying opportunities."
The Johannesburg bourse hit an 18-month high on Wednesday, helped by a retreat in the rand. But investors are not willing to bet on much stability in the currency, and are keeping a close watch over their forex-earning stocks like Anglo American and Sappi.
SABMiller, the number two brewer in the world, is another forex-earner in focus. On Tuesday it will update the market on trading over the Christmas period.
It is followed on Thursday by the world's second largest luxury goods group Richemont, which will tell investors how sales of its brands - which include Cartier and Montblanc - did over the run up to the year-end.
Analysts expect Richemont to report a drop of around six percent in revenues, hurt by currency moves.
On the local front, big clothing retailer Edgars Consolidated Stores Ltd releases an update for the Christmas season and the quarter to end-December on Thursday.
Healthcare shop-owner New Clicks reports on the same day. Both updates will be watched closely, after fellow retailer Woolworths Holdings upset investors with its update this week.
It said like-for-like store sales grew 7.5 percent in the six months to end-December, lower than the market expected.