U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fell in March, data showed, as the cost of gasoline declined, and there were signs that underlying producer inflation was subsiding.
The dollar index was last down 0.5% at 100.97 against a basket of global currencies. "A weaker dollar has helped lift commodity prices and emerging market currencies today. The rand is a beneficiary of higher commodities, specifically key export metals...," Shaun Murison, senior market analyst at IG, told Reuters. The rand has lost about 3% against the dollar in April, as a long-running power crisis and weak local economic data continue to weigh on investor sentiment. South Africa hosted its fifth investment conference on Thursday in Johannesburg where it was announced that the five-year investment target of 1.2 trillion rand set by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 was exceeded. Locally, mining data released earlier in the day by Statistics South Africa did little to affect investor sentiment, despite a 5% fall in total mining output year-on-year for February. "Today's soft mining production and sales figures for February 2023 seem to have done little to deter these gains," Murison said. Overall on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the blue-chip Top-40 index closed up 1.03%, while the broader all-share index ended the day 0.93% higher. The government's benchmark 2030 bond was slightly stronger, with the yield down 2 basis points at 9.885%. (Reporting by Tannur Anders and Nellie Peyton; Editing by Alexander Winning, Bhargav Acharya and Shailesh Kuber)
