South Africa's rand, stocks edge up as investors see U.S. rates unchanged

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand traded slightly firmer against the dollar on Wednesday as investors speculated that the Federal Reserve would signal low rates for longer in the United States, boosting demand for high-yielding emerging markets. Resources led stocks higher, lifted by gains in the price of metals such as platinum, which was up over 2 percent, as well as palladium. The rand climbed to a session high of 14.2700 per dollar and was up 0.2 percent at 14.3320 by 1610 GMT compared with Tuesday's New York close. Traders and analysts said the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) would likely keep interest rates unchanged later on Wednesday, although a hawkish tone on the U.S. economy could feed expectations for hikes later in the year. "The rand's a little bit firmer just ahead of the FOMC ... and I would put it down to some profit-taking ahead of that," Rand Merchant Bank trader Ian Martin said. "Our view is that they will not change rates today." South Africa government debt rallied alongside the rand, pulling the yield on paper due in 2026 3 basis points lower to 8.72 percent. On the local bourse, the benchmark Top-40 index was up 0.18 percent to 46,874 points while the All-Share index rose 0.24 percent to 53,764 points, with resources the biggest gainers. "The underlying commodities have turned positive, gold, silver, platinum, palladium. That is pulling some of the resource counters firmer as well," Global Trader head of trading Nilan Morar said. Platinum producer Anglo American Platinum gained 4.19 percent to 426.29 rand while Kumba Iron Ore rose 5.95 percent to 131.69 rand. BHP Billiton strengthened 1.62 percent to 180.91 rand and Gold Fields was up 4.5 percent to 86.22 rand. Trading was just below average, with a total of 244 million shares changing hands compared with last year's daily average of 280 million. (Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa and Tanisha Heiberg; editing by Adrian Croft)