South African rand posts biggest daily gain vs dollar in 3 months

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand recorded its biggest daily gain against the dollar in three months on Friday, buoyed by the end of a gold strike at some mines and weak U.S. jobs data that weighed on the greenback. The rand strengthened more than 2.2 percent to a session high of 10.0060 to the dollar, its firmest in nearly three weeks, and was up 2.15 percent at 10.0150 by 1535 GMT from Thursday's close in New York. A shutdown in the gold sector of Africa's largest economy continued to peter out on Friday as some miners returned to work three days after laying down their tools. "Some of the unions came to the party today. The mine strike doesn't look like it is going to be as protracted as it looked on Monday-Tuesday this week," said Ian Martin, a rand trader with Rand Merchant Bank. The rand was also boosted by weaker-than-expected U.S. non-farm payrolls numbers which dented the case for the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin unwinding its monetary stimulus programme soon. The rand has dropped more than 18 percent against the dollar since the start of 2013 as investors worried about domestic labour strife and also due to a global sell-off of emerging markets currencies ahead of the anticipated Fed move. "The U.S. data that came out today was a little bit weaker and it just sort of delays the tapering story a little bit," said Rand Merchant Bank's Martin. "The market still expects it to happen, but it may be a little bit slower or more delayed." Government bond prices were also stronger, with the yield on the 2026 paper dropping 15 basis points to 8.415 percent while the yield on the 2015 issue was down by 12 basis points to 6.34 percent. "The bulk of the movement occurred after the release of the non-farm payrolls, which fell well short of expectations and all the indicators led to the strengthening across the bond curve," said Richard Farber, a bond trader with World Wide Capital Securities.