Brazilian Real Gains on Outlook for Moody's Ratings Upgrades, Cash Inflows

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil's real gained after Moody's
Investors Service put the country's ratings on review for
possible improvement, following increases by Standard & Poor's
and Fitch this month.

The agencies' moves is boosting interest in local assets,
already buoyed by growing dollar flows from exports and foreign
investments, said Nuno Almeida, chief economist at the Brazilian
unit of Standard Bank Group.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

House price growth to slow

Residential house price growth, which hit more than 30% year-on-year in 2004, should continue moderating as higher interest rates dampen consumer demand, a survey showed on Thursday.

The Standard Bank monthly property gauge indicated house price growth rose to 8.4% year-on-year in February from 6.9% in January.

But the rise was largely attributed to the low base of the same month last year, with no month-on-month growth in prices, after price growth slowed steadily in 2005 and 2006.

The median house price remained at R570 000, the survey showed.

Read more at FIN24.co.za

S.Africa securities up 44 pct in 2006,seen growing

Securitisation in South Africa increased by 44 percent to 31.7 billion rand in 2006 and should rise further this year as appetite for structured finance grows, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday.

In a report, the ratings agency said issuance of Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities increased to 13.4 billion rand in 2006 from 10.7 billion the previous year, almost half of it from Standard Bank's Blue Granite Investments programme.

This brought the total term issuance to date to 83.2 billion.

Read Full Article at Reuters South Africa

'Don't bet on Feb rate move'

Standard Bank chief economist, Goolam Ballim, says he does not expect more rate hikes in the current interest rate cycle, with even some scope for easing later this year.

Read Full article at FIN24.co.za