THE rand steadied at two-week lows to the dollar at midday as the market shifted its focus to the US nonfarm payrolls report due for release this afternoon. The industrial action in the steel and engineering sector, now in its third day, continues to weigh on investor sentiment. The domestic currency has lost more than 1.5% to the greenback since Monday. "There is a barrage of data out of the US today but focus will be on the nonfarm figures and if the ADP number is anything to go by, we could be in for a further bout of dollar strength," Standard Bank trader Inshaan Omar said. The expectation is for the US to have created 210,000 jobs in June. If the figure comes in at consensus, it will make it the fifth month in a row that the US has created more than 200,000 jobs. At 12.09pm the rand was at R10.7770 to the dollar from R10.7538 on Wednesday. Against the euro‚ the rand was at R14.7046 from its previous close of R14.6809 and was at R18.4714 against the pound from R18.4524 on Wednesday.

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