S.African rand hits 3-wk high,stocks up for 4th day

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand held its gains against the dollar on Wednesday, trading near a three-week high and local stocks rose for the fourth day in a row buoyed by mining shares.

The JSE Top-40 index of blue chips gained 1.12 percent to 24,020.62 points and the broader All-share index was up 1.09 percent to 26,662.54 points.

"Overseas markets are all positive and corporate and economic reports are showing that the global economic recovery is track," one Johannesburg-based trader said.

Investors bought into risky assets partly encouraged by strong Chinese data on factory output and retail sales.

Commodity stocks were among the top gainers on the bourse on optimism that global recovery would boost demand for metals, whose prices cruised higher.

On the currency front, the rand was trading at 7.3480 to the dollar at 1528 GMT, 0.27 percent firmer than Tuesday's New York close of 7.3680. It hit a new three-week high of 7.3325 earlier.

"It has certainly been contained in the 7.33/36 range and a lot of it is driven by gold. People are watching gold and the dollar at the moment, and the dollar has weakened a bit," said a dealer at Global Trader.

The dollar fell to a 15-month low against a basket of currencies while gold, a major South African export, climbed to another record high of $1,120 an ounce.

The rand has gained more than 20 percent to the dollar so far this year, making it one of the best-performing emerging market currencies.