The rand slumped to its lowest against the dollar in a week as renewed concern about Europe’s debt crisis and global growth hurt demand for riskier assets and pushed the currency to key levels, triggering sell orders. The rand slipped as much as 1.4 percent to 8.0763, the weakest level since Oct. 6, and traded 1.3 percent down at 8.0661 as of 9:32 a.m. in Johannesburg. Moody’s Investors Service said France’s top credit rating is under pressure, after a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe’s leaders won’t resolve the sovereign- debt crisis this year. Economic growth in China, the biggest buyer of South African raw materials, expanded at the slowest pace since 2009 in the third quarter. Emerging-market stocks snapped nine days of gains and commodity prices fell. “Risk aversion reared its ugly head again,” Standard Bank Group Ltd. analysts led by Johannesburg-based Michael Keenan said in a research note. “This morning’s disappointing GDP data out of China bodes ill for South Africa’s trade prospects and the rand.” The rand may decline to 8.21 per dollar after breaching 8.04, a key level, the Standard Bank analysts wrote. South Africa’s 6.75 percent bonds due 2021 fell for a second day, pushing the yield up six basis points, or 0.06 percentage point, to 8.17 percent, the highest since Oct. 6. To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Brand in Cape Town at rbrand9@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net

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