The rand was stronger against the dollar in early morning trade on Thursday in line with the generally weaker greenback.
"I put the rand dollar in a range of 6.79 to 6.85 to start off with, but that may later change to 6.74 to 6.84," a local currency trader said.
At 08:43 local time, the rand was bid at 6.7736 versus the dollar from its previous close of 6.8032. It was bid at 9.6049 to the euro from 9.6233 before and at 10.9199 against sterling from 10.9428 at its previous close.
The euro was bid at US$1.4154 against US$1.4118 previously.
In their morning brief, RMB strategists John Cairns and Nema Ramkhelawan said the early week malaise had given way to a stronger rand - "both dollar/rand and euro/rand made new lows yesterday."
With the Brazilian real at a three-year record, the Australian dollar at a 29-year record and the Japanese yen carry-trade coming back to the fore, it almost seemed that - after a volatile first quarter - the 2010 trend for pushing commodity and high-yielding currencies consistently stronger was re-emerging.
"If so, the market is due for a fight with the SA Reserve Bank, which was active at these levels earlier in the year," the RMB strategists added.
They expected a lot more volatility through to the end of the week.
"The PIIGS's [Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain] problems are firmly back in focus today as Ireland will release its third set of bank stress tests, one that may result in two more large banks being nationalised and a further escalation in their fiscal crisis.
"Then, tomorrow we have the big one - US non-farm payrolls. We wonder if the net results of these will be for the euro/dollar trend to finally turn. If so, then it will be the euro/rand that will feel the pressure for a stronger rand."
They added that local trade data would be out at 14:00.
"This isn't likely to move the market but after the very positive fourth-quarter 2010 current account figure, it will be interesting to see if the positive trend on the trade account continues."
Meanwhile Dow Jones Newswires reported that the dollar slipped against the yen in Asia on Thursday, as exporters and traders locked in profits following the greenback's recent rally, with speculation of an early end to US credit easing waning.
The dollar rose as high as Y83.22 in early trade on speculation that local fixing would show a shortage of dollars at the end of fiscal book-closing, but the gains lost steam after exporters started selling the greenback and short-term speculators unwound dollar longs, traders said.
"The dollar's upside is also technically capped at Y83.30 to Y83.50. Hopes for an end to US quantitative easing alone are not enough to push the pair up above those levels," said Yuzo Sakai, foreign exchange manager at Tokyo Forex and Ueda Harlow.
"It is hard to see the dollar continuing to rise unless we get a conviction that the (US Federal Reserve) will take the next step," said Tomoko Fujii, senior forex strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
"If the Fed will bring forward the end period of its credit easing (that is slated to end in June), that would be meaningful, but we can't count on that too much."
The euro rose slightly against the dollar as short-term investors bought on the view that the euro-zone consumer price index for March due at 09:00 GMT would show continuing inflationary pressures, after the European Central Bank (ECB) board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said on Wednesday that he expected the figures to be in line with expectations, said a senior forex dealer at a major Japanese bank.
Mounting speculation on monetary tightening ahead of an ECB governing council meeting next Thursday could buoy the single currency to about $1.4300 in coming sessions, the dealer added.
Bonds follow rand firmer
South African bonds were firmer on Thursday morning on the back of a stronger local currency.
By 08:50, the benchmark R157 bond was trading at 7.810 percent from its previous close of 7.840 percent, while the R207 was bid at 8.680 percent from its
previous close of 8.690 percent. The R186 was trading at 8.980 percent from its previous close of 9.000 percent.
