Argentine stocks rallied to close slightly higher on Friday, buoyed by last-minute buys in two leading companies at bargain prices. The MerVal index of the 11 leading stocks rebounded from a 1-percent decline early in the session to finish the day up 0.35 percent to 1,444.61 points.
"The MerVal spent much of the day down before moving into positive territory thanks to the recovery of Acindar and Petrobras Participaciones," said Hernan Labrone, an analyst at Fenix Compania Financiera.
Steel producer Acindar jumped 1.72 percent to 5.90 pesos while Petrobras Participaciones climbed 1.2 percent to 3.41 pesos.
Volume totalled 67.7 million pesos ($23.4 million).
In the foreign exchange market, the peso lost 0.43 percent of its value against the US dollar as importers purchased dollars to comply with the latest new central bank rule, traders said.
The currency closed at 2.885/2.8875 per dollar against 2.8725/2.875 on Thursday, but has gained 3.03 percent so far this year.
Starting Friday, the central bank obliges importers of consumer goods to buy the dollars needed to pay for their merchandise before it enters the country.
The measure affects 1,800 products representing imports worth $1.92 billion in the first five months of this year.
Comments
Comments are closed.