South Africa's rand steady vs dlr; stock futures up

* Rand steady, to follow euro

* Stock futures up, govt bonds a tad weaker

* Manufacturing output data on Thursday

JOHANNESBURG, March 10 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand steadied against the dollar early on Wednesday and was expected to take its cue from the euro, while stock futures pointed to a slightly higher start.

The JSE's blue chip Top-40 March futures contract ALSIc1 was up 0.06 percent ahead of market opening at 0700 GMT.

At 0645 GMT, the rand ZAR=D3 was trading at 7.40 to the dollar, not far off its previous close of 7.39 in New York on Tuesday.

"The euro/rand really seems to be the driver ... we are looking to trade something like 7.37 to 7.44 to start and will see what the euro/rand does," Jim Bryson, chief dealer at Rand Merchant Bank said. "If the euro/rand (firms), that might take the dollar/rand with it."

The rand EURZAR=R was last trading at 10.06 against the euro after touching its strongest level since early 2008 on Monday. The single currency was, once again, under pressure on concerns that some euro zone economies may encounter fiscal problems similar to Greece. [ID:nLDE62902P]

South African government bonds weakened slightly.

The yield, which moves inversely to the price, on the 2015 bond ZAR157= added half a basis point at 8.260 percent and the 2036 yield ZAR209= was up by the same margin to 9.02 percent.

The economic data calender is bare except for January's manufacturing output data out on Thursday, which is expected to show the production output grew by 6.1 percent year-on-year from 3.2 percent in December. (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda; Editing by Jan Dahinten)