Anglo American shares rally for second session, other miners also climb

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Anglo American (LSE: AAL.L - news) , which briefly had their biggest ever one-day gain on Thursday, surged for a second consecutive session on Friday, boosted by ongoing weakness in the U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . dollar.

A weaker dollar makes dollar-denominated commodities such as oil and metals more affordable for holders of other currencies. The dollar was under pressure before U.S. jobs data later on Friday which was likely to reinforce expectations that the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates in March.

Equity market dealers added that mining stocks were also rising as a result of traders cancelling negative "short" bets - namely bets that those stocks would fall in future - in light of the recent rally in the sector.

Anglo American, which closed up 20 percent on Thursday, extended those gains to stand 10.8 percent higher by 1050 GMT on Friday.

Rival Glencore was up 4.6 percent, while BHP Billiton shares rose 1 percent.

The FTSE 350 Mining Index, which fell 50 percent last year on concerns about a slowdown in top metals consumer China, was up 1.8 percent. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Alasdair Pal; Editing by Atul Prakash)