The rand remained softer against the dollar in late afternoon trade on Monday as it tracked a euro that had been hit by concern over obstacles to Greece's bailout programme.
"Considering all of this, the rand hasn't done too badly today in a relatively lacklustre session," a local currency trader said.
"Yes, we're tracking the euro and we continue to trade from headline to headline which makes trading people rather uncomfortable because one is at the mercy of something one can't really predict," he added.
"Markets seem to have lost that bit of risk appetite we saw this morning and they seem to be waiting for the outcome of the European Central Bank's long term refinancing operation (LTRO)," the trader stated.
At 15:48 local time, the rand was bid at R7.6259 to the dollar from its previous close of R7.5889. It was bid at R10.2005 to the euro from R10.2107 before, and at R12.0750 against sterling from R12.0317 previously.
The euro was bid at US$1.3385 from its previous close of US$1.3467.
Meanwhile Dow Jones Newswires reported that trading conditions were quiet with little by way of economic data and no fresh Greek news until later on Monday when the German parliament voted on Greece' latest bailout package.
Some analysts said Wednesday's three-year LTRO could yet boost the euro, depending on how much cheap long-term funding banks decided to take up, with the current consensus centred on a figure of around EUR450 billion.
The ECB's generous liquidity measures, even so, did not detract from the fact the eurozone remains saddled with an onerous burden of high debt and low economic growth, they said.
"With the second three-year LTRO due later this week, there is no reason to doubt the merits of a tactical risk rally, yet we still question whether the market is making the mistake of ignoring the fact that liquidity is simply a temporary ersatz for much-needed structural adjustment," UBS strategist Geoffrey Yu said in a note.
