Latam FX firm, Ecuador bonds rally after surprise election result

Most Latin American currencies firmed on Monday against a weaker dollar, while bonds in Ecuador rallied after banker Guillermo Lasso pulled off a surprise win in Sunday's presidential runoff against socialist economist Andres Arauz.

But Peru's sol currency and stocks tumbled after a far-left candidate won the first round of that country's presidential election on Sunday.

In Ecuador, Lasso took 52% of the vote in a runoff on promises to revive the economy, following a campaign that pitted his free market economic ideas against the social welfare plans of economist Arauz.

Ecuadorean bonds dated July 2035 rose 13 points to 61, a trader said.

"I think in the short term, it is good," said Alejandro Arevalo, emerging market debt manager at Jupiter Asset Management.

"But... when you look at the economy, it is still very fragile... So I do think that after the initial honeymoon stage, investors will start to think, how does the country move forward?"

PERUVIAN JOLT

In Peru, MSCI's Peru ETF was down almost 3% at $35.16 in US trading after the country's presidential vote headed for a run-off with far-left candidate Pedro Castillo set to win the Andean country's first round.

The Peruvian stock index fell 0.2%, while the sol currency lost 2.07% at open to 3.68/3.70 per dollar.

"Castillo's three pillars are pretty scary. He's talking about nationalisation, about the government taking control of the economy. He's in favour of governments or revolutions like in Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela, so it's something that could bring significant volatility to the market, just to the bonds overall," Jupiter Asset Management's Arevalo said.

"We have to wait for the final votes to be counted, but it's definitely something negative for the market."

As the dollar weakened ahead of much awaited US consumer price inflation data, other Latam currencies firmed along with the broader emerging market peers, with Mexico's peso hovering near their highest since mid-February.

Brazil's real rose 0.4%, while higher oil prices helped crude exporter Colombia's peso mark a positive start to the week.

Climbing oil prices also propped up shares of Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras, helping the country's main stocks index outperform a rout in global stocks ahead of US inflation data and earnings.