S.Africa's rand retreats, fails to break technical barrier

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand reversed recent gains against the dollar early on Friday after failing to break technical barriers beyond a 2-week high. At 0652 GMT the unit had softened 0.27 percent to 11.8135 per dollar, backtracking after an overnight high of 11.7820 in New York fuelled by poor economic data from the U.S.. "From a technical stand point the rand got pretty close to its medium term support level," said Maemo Rametse, a trader at Standard Bank in a note. "A break of