JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s rand weakened against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday after local data showed higher-than-forecast inflation in October.
At 1636 GMT, the rand traded at 18.8375 against the dollar, around 1% weaker than its previous close.
The dollar was last up around 0.5% against a basket of major currencies.
Headline consumer inflation rose to 5.9% year-on-year in October from 5.4% in September, data from Statistics South Africa showed.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast consumer price inflation at 5.5%.
However, the South African Reserve Bank is still expected to leave rates unchanged on Thursday, analysts said.
“Given that the rise was driven by non-core components, the tightening cycle is unlikely to be restarted,” Jason Tuvey, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, said in a note.
“But there’s a growing risk that policymakers decide to delay the start of monetary easing until much later in 2024,” Tuvey added.
On the stock market, the Top-40 and the broader all-share indexes closed around 0.7% higher.
South Africa’s benchmark 2030 government bond was weaker in late deals, with the yield up 23.5 basis points to 10.140%.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Kirsten Donovan)
