JOHANNESBURG - The rand firmed up slightly on Friday, clawing back some of its losses following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address, which some analysts said lacked detail on how he plans to fix the flagging economy.Ramaphosa also pledged to speed up 230 billion rand of support for struggling power utility Eskom.
Bonds weakened, with the yield on the benchmark government bond due in 2026 up 7 basis points to 8.12%. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s benchmark Top-40 Index slipped 0.11% to 52,902.88 while the broader All-Share Index closed 0.05% lower at 58,941.47. Embattled telecommunications company Vodacom Group fell 0.71% to 125.37 rand after announcing that it had entered into agreements to sell some of its Business Africa operations, which offer business-managed services to enterprises.