S.Africa's rand tumbles vs dollar, stocks also fall

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand fell more than 2 percent against the dollar on Thursday, reversing the previous day's strong gains as the greenback recovered broadly, helped by a downturn in appetite for risky assets.

The local bourse ended lower, tracking weaker global markets as a bull-run in commodity shares took a breather, while government bonds also weakened sharply, pushing yields higher, on unbundling of long positions ahead of the weekend.

Debt problems in Dubai also had an effect, hitting financial markets across the board on Thursday, sinking global stocks and boosting the dollar.

The Johannesburg Top-40 index lost 1.74 percent to 24,477.11 points, while the broader All-Share index shed 1.69 percent to 27,025.61 points.

By 1540 GMT the rand traded 2.11 percent weaker at 7.4925 against the greenback after ending Wednesday's session at 7.3375. It fell to 7.5075 earlier on Thursday, its weakest level in two days.

"We've seen rand weakness from early this morning, partly I think because of the move down (rand strength) that we've seen recently," a Johannesburg currency trader said.

"Also the move we've seen in the last hour is because of the dollar strength against the euro. I think that is the biggest driver at the moment."

The dollar was firmer as renewed risk aversion prompted investors to dump riskier assets, halting broad dollar selling.

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