Latin American assets were little changed on Friday on investor concern about the sustainability of the recent rally. Trading also slowed down as a holiday in Brazil's financial center closed the stock and commodity exchanges in Sao Paulo. The MSCI stock index for Latin America edged 0.2 percent higher after two consecutive days of losses which left the index just slightly below a 15-month high.
Most regional currencies edged lower on persistent fears of government intervention to curb the recent rally. "A degree of uncertainty seems to have settled over global financial markets, driving range trading to become the norm across asset classes," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a research note. Regional stock gains were supported by a positive performance in Chile, where the blue chip IPSA stock index rose 0.77 percent.
But Mexico's benchmark IPC index lost 0.45 percent as investors became more averse to risk, especially after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said it was too early to say the financial crisis was over. Trichet also warned that banks risked becoming addicted to cheap money from emergency government stimulus programs and must be prepared for its withdrawal, reinforcing market concerns about the early removal of expansionary policies.
The Mexican peso weakened for the same reasons. It was trading 0.14 percent weaker in the afternoon at 13.086 per US dollar. Currencies in Chile, Colombia and Peru also slipped between 0.1 and 0.17 percent. The Brazilian real closed little changed at 1.733 per dollar with very thin trading outside Sao Paulo.
In a more optimistic forecast for the Brazilian labour market, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the economy will add 1.3 million formal jobs by the end of 2009. A few days earlier, the country's Labour Minister had estimated 1.0 million to 1.1 million jobs would be created. Meanwhile, a source said Argentina could launch a long-awaited debt swap for holdouts as early as January after filing an offer prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and with European regulators in Luxembourg.
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