Johannesburg - South African bonds were up to 18 basis points weaker in midday trade on Friday, as they tracked the rand amid dampened sentiment on the back of the eurozone debt crisis.
A trader said: "It looks like there are issues around Europe again, Hungary was downgraded - the rand's weakening. It's hard to say where we're going given how volatile the market is," a trader said.
By 11:50, the benchmark R157 bond was trading at 7.150% from its previous close of 6.970%. The R207 was bid at 8.205% and offered at 8.285% from a previous close of 8.130% and the R186 was trading at 8.680% from its close of 8.650%.
The rand was bid at 8.5479 against the dollar from its previous close of 8.4744.
Dow Jones Newswires said that Moody's Investors Service downgraded Hungary's government bonds one notch to Ba1 with a negative outlook.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services had earlier said it would maintain Hungary's BBB- credit rating on credit watch negative. Moody's move came after Fitch Ratings downgraded Portugal's debt to junk.
"It is a quiet day on the domestic calendar with no significant data releases or events scheduled. We would therefore expect developments in Europe to continue to take centre stage," Absa Capital said earlier.
Foreigners were net buyers of R114.752m of South African bonds including repo transactions on Thursday after net sales of R1.931bn of local bonds on Wednesday, data released by the JSE shows.
Nominal cumulative volume was R58.672bn from R65.935bn on Wednesday.
Foreigners were net buyers of R124.423m of South African bonds excluding repo transactions on Thursday after net sales of R1.920bn local bonds on Wednesday.
For the year to date, foreigners have been net buyers of R45.083bn worth of local bonds, excluding repo transactions.
In 2010 foreigners bought net R57.064bn worth of local bonds, excluding repo transactions.
For the year to date for total transactions, including repo transactions, foreigners have been net buyers of R35.705bn of local bonds. In 2010 they bought net R44.541bn worth of bonds.
