The South African rand gained today, rising for the third straight day against the US dollar, as commodities rallied and market participants expect an increase of the interest rates.

The Australian dollar decided that its rally doesn’t need to stop and continued its ascent, posting the new record high versus the US dollar.

The Australian dollar strengthened against its major counterparts after stocks and commodities rallied and the measure of price volatility fell.

The Canadian dollar gained today, erasing its losses against the US dollar, as commodities rallied and crude oil, the key export of Canada, advanced to the highest level in more than two years, attracting investors to Canada’s assets.

The Canadian dollar weakened as the disaster in Japan cut prices for crude oil and other raw materials and damped demand for currencies linked to economic growth, including the loonie.

The Australian dollar strengthened for the third day against its US counterpart as the commodities rallied, increasing demand for growth-related currencies. The currency declined against the euro and was unchanged versus the Japanese yen.

The euro continues to show an impressive performance as optimism about the ability of the European Union’s leaders to deal with the region’s financial crisis grows every day.

The Australian dollar wasn’t been able to profit from the rally of commodities and continued to fall as the floods, which are worst since 1893, threaten to disrupt the nation’s economy and can prevent the central bank from raising the interest rates.

The Canadian dollar pared losses against its US counterpart today as the rally of commodities outweighed the impact of the increasing concerns about the fiscal crisis in the European Union.

The rally of the US dollar weakened its Australian counterpart as the drop of commodities, which was cause by the rally of the greenback, damped the appeal of the commodity currencies.