The rand was weaker on Tuesday morning as the Greek debt crisis continued to dominate headlines‚ leading investors to take a risk-averse stance.

Dow Jones Newswires said investors were unlikely to get much clarity on developments in the crisis until Friday when eurozone finance ministers met in Riga to discuss the state of negotiations between Greece and its international creditors.

“With European Union and European Central Bank officials no longer afraid to openly discuss the ramifications and consequences of a Greek default‚ and the prospect of a deal at this week’s eurozone finance ministers meeting disappearing off into the distance‚ the odds are rising that we could well see a Greece default sometime in the next few weeks‚” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

At 8.45am‚ the rand was at R12.1549 against the dollar from a previous close of R12.1443.

Against the euro the rand traded at R13.0101 from its previous close of R13.0393 and was at R18.0788 against the British pound from a previous close of R18.1039.

The euro was at $1.0702 to the dollar from an overnight close of $1.0736.

Barclays Research said in an early morning note that the rand was vulnerable due to other factors such as load-shedding and the negative investor sentiment due to the xenophobic attacks.

“Given that data remain thin ahead of tomorrow’s domestic consumer price index prints‚ we expect the rand to continue taking direction from the level of global risk appetite and the aforementioned idiosyncratic developments‚” the research team said.