South African Rand Slips To 15-day Low Against Dollar

The South African rand extended its European session downtrend against the US dollar in New York deals on Tuesday. The rand, which closed Monday's New York session at 7.7201 against the greenback, slipped to a 15-day low of 7.7965 by about 1:20 pm ET. At present, the pair is worth 7.7940.

Today, the Statistics South Africa announced that the gross domestic product or GDP at market prices increased a seasonally and annualized 3.2% sequentially in the fourth quarter, faster than the 0.9% growth in the previous quarter. Economists expected an increase of 2.6%. A year ago, the GDP was down 4%.

On an unadjusted basis, real GDP at market prices decreased 1.4% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, compared to the 2.2% fall in the previous quarter. The GDP was up 1.9% a year ago.

On the economic front on Tuesday, the US Conference Board released a report today showed that its consumer confidence index fell to 46.0 in February from an upwardly revised 56.5 in January.