THE rand continued to hold at firmer levels at midday on Friday after earlier reaching two-month highs against the dollar. The market is eyeing the release of US nonfarm payrolls data for January later in the afternoon. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected 237,000 nonfarm jobs to have been created in January, which would represent steady hiring. The unemployment rate is expected to tick one-tenth of a percentage point lower to 5.5%. At 11.30am the rand was at R11.3001 to the dollar from Thursday’s close of R11.2727. Against the euro, the local unit was at R12.9555 from a previous close of R12.9362 and was at R17.3178 against the British pound from a previous close of R17.2787. The euro was at $1.1465 against the dollar from a close of $1.1478 on Thursday. Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) currency analyst John Cairns said it was unclear why the rand was doing better than its compatriot risk currencies. "It is not because of large inflows. Foreigners have again been net sellers of bonds this month and have only been marginal net buyers of equities." The change in global focus to a more risk-on approach had helped, although this could not explain the entire move on Thursday, when the rand recorded its strongest daily move since September 2013. It strengthened to R11.25 on Thursday. "Perhaps there is a large order going through that we do not know about," Mr Cairns said. The dollar weakened on Thursday afternoon as investors locked in profits. There was no particular catalyst for the change, but some traders have speculated that it could have been due to a slight rise in unemployment claims in the world’s largest economy.

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