JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The South African rand firmed on Thursday, retaining recent gains from a gold rally that boosted most emerging market assets.
At 1245 GMT, the rand traded at 17.09 against the dollar, up about 0.3% from Wednesday’s close.
Gold prices held above $4,000 an ounce on Thursday as investors remain uncertain about the U.S. government shutdown, which has reached its ninth day.
Gold, traditionally seen as a store of value during times of instability, recently hit record highs because of economic uncertainty, as well as expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts.
The dollar largely remained flat as the government shutdown left traders without key economic data.
Domestically focused traders looked at South Africa’s manufacturing output data which showed that production fell 1.5% year on year in August, after falling by a revised 1.3% year on year in July.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected production growth to have slowed to 0.1%.
On the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Top-40 index was last up 0.1%.
South Africa’s benchmark 2035 government bond was firm, as the yield fell 6.5 basis points to 9.025%.
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov and Anathi Madubela, editing by Ed OsmondEditing Mark Potter)
