South Africa's rand strengthened on Tuesday as the absence of any immediate escalation in tensions between Iran and the United States prompted investors to return to riskier assets.

The rand was trading at 14.3400 to the dollar by 1452 GMT, 0.91% higher than its previous close.

South African shares also gained on Tuesday, with many rebounding from losses at the start of the week, but gold stocks fell back. They had risen over the previous two trading days as investors retreated to safe haven assets amid fears over the situation in the Middle East.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange's All-Share index closed 0.33% higher at 57,384 points, while the top-40 index also rose 0.3% to 51,154 points.

The biggest winners of the day on the blue-chip index were financial firms like Investec, FirstRand and Sanlam, which benefit from a stronger rand and rose 0.59%, 0.58% and 0.56% respectively.