South Africa's rand strengthened and bonds rallied on Wednesday after better than expected inflation and retail data. Lower inflation traditionally boosts the demand for bonds because investors believe their investment will be worth more as time passes. Headline annual consumer inflation slowed to 3.8 percent in March from 4 percent in February. Month-on-month inflation slowed to 0.4 percent from 0.8 percent.
Retail sales rose 4.9 percent year on year in February.
All this and more in our morning market podcast:
