Mexican stocks rose to a record high on Friday as investors bet improving growth in the United States will support local exports, capping a strong year for most of the region's markets. Gains in Mexico, the only major Latin American market open on Friday, lifted the MSCI Latin American stocks index 0.3 percent, on track for its fourth straight session of gains.
The MSCI index is set to post a 12 percent gain in 2010. Analysts expect US factory survey data due next week could back views that the American economy is growing faster than expected and give Latin American markets a good start to 2011.
Mexico's IPC index rose 0.4 percent, lifted by a 2.25 percent gain in miner Penoles. The IPC has jumped about 19.5 percent during 2010 and been consistently hitting record highs since September. Latin America's smaller markets in Chile, Argentina and Peru outpaced gains of both Brazil and Mexico in 2010, with Peru jumping 64 percent as record metals prices lifted mining shares.
William Landers, a fund manager at BlackRock in New York, noted that Brazil's Bovespa <,BVSP> is trading at 10.5 times 2011 earnings estimates. Mexico, by comparison, is trading at around 14 times next year's earnings. Francisco Cataldo, retail strategist at brokerage Agora, expects the Bovespa to gain 24 percent in 2011 as rising wages support shares linked to domestic consumer demand.
But some analysts and investors are getting worried that low interest rates in major economies like the US are driving investors to bid up emerging market assets beyond their fundamental growth prospects. Still, despite the risk of a correction, Interacciones still expects he IPC to gain 12 percent in 2011.
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