RIO DE JANEIRO: Most Latin American currencies rose on Thursday as oil prices recovered part of their recent losses, but concern about a growing corruption scandal at Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras weighed on the real.
The currencies of Mexico, Chile, and Colombia rose between 0.4 percent and 1.0 percent as prices of oil and other commodities rallied, boosting the export outlook for those countries.
Still, the Brazilian real seesawed around the unchanged mark, one day after closing at its weakest level in nearly 10 years, with investors fearing the fallout of a corruption scandal that forced Petrobras' chief executive and other top executives to resign.
The scandal has already caused Petrobras to cut investment and became a major political headache to President Dilma Rousseff. On Thursday, Brazil's federal police summoned the treasurer of the ruling Workers' Party to investigate his possible involvement in the scheme, which allegedly funneled kickback payments to the party and government allies in Congress.
Shares of Petrobras gained 1.6 percent, contributing to a 0.6 percent rise in Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index, as investors awaited the announcement on Friday of a new chief executive to head the company.
Analysts warned, however, that Rousseff is likely to have a hard time finding a star executive to turn around the oil firm, which has so far been unable to publish audited third-quarter results with necessary writedowns related to corruption practices.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.