The rand has strengthened against the US dollar after the world's two economic power houses agreed to resume trade talks.A ceasefire in the US-China trade war helped lift the rand to its best level against the dollar in three months on Monday morning, but the local currency was facing headwinds in the form of volatile commodity prices.
At the G20 summit in Japan at the weekend, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in principle to restart trade talks. Markets also cheered a US commitment to relax restrictions on US tech-giant Huawei. Risk assets benefited, but the gold price did not. At 9.20am bullion was 1.82% lower at $1,383.45 an ounce. The rand often suffers along with a falling gold price, as gold is a key foreign-exchange earner for SA.