By Paul Dobson and Yoshiaki Nohara Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The South African rand and the Canadian dollar advanced versus the yen and the U.S. dollar as gains in stocks stoked demand for higher-yielding currencies. The rand rose against all 16 of the most-traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg and the Canadian dollar strengthened a second day as U.S. stock futures and German equities advanced. The pound weakened against the dollar and the euro amid deepening concern this year’s U.K. election will end in stalemate. The euro reversed declines after trading at the lowest level in eight months against the dollar last week on concern nations such as Greece may struggle to pay their debt. “It’s a relief rally after a weekend when nothing went wrong,” said Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon Corp. in London. For sterling, “the thing that is causing concern is the possibility of a hung parliament that brings a lack of certainty about how you deal with the deficit,” he said. The rand climbed 0.9 percent to 7.7151 per dollar at 8:41 a.m. in London, and rose 1.2 percent to 11.600 yen. The Canadian currency traded at C$1.0668 per U.S. dollar. The pound weakened 0.4 percent to 87.73 pence per euro and fell 0.2 percent to $1.5616. The euro rose 0.1 percent to $1.3697. To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Dobson in London at pdobson2@bloomberg.netYoshiaki Nohara in Tokyo at ynohara1@bloomberg.net;

Source