Mexican stocks end flat despite rate jitters

16 May, 2004

Mexican stocks were flat on Friday despite growing expectations of a US interest rate hike as the Mexican central bank decided to leave monetary policy unchanged.
Mexico's stock market ended nearly unchanged on Friday with the main IPC index up 0.02 percent to close at 9,786.32 points.
Leading brewer and bottler Femsa shot up 8.73 percent on hopes that it is close to settling a bitter dispute with its Belgian partner Interbrew.
Mexico's central bank held its monetary policy steady on Friday morning, resisting calls from some market players to push interest rates higher.
A tightening of monetary policy would have boosted the peso, but most analysts and traders had expected no change, and the markets took the decision in their stride.
April inflation and industry output data in the United States on Friday supported market expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates by 25 basis points in June, but US Treasury prices rallied after an initial slide in chaotic trading.
In Mexico's stock market, brewer and bottler Femsa rose 4.21 pesos to finish at 52.46 pesos and its ADR jumped 8.9 percent to $45.30 amid hopes it may soon settle its legal row with Interbrew.
A US judge has ordered the two firms to settle their dispute about the transfer of Femsa's US distribution network stemming from Interbrew's planned takeover of Brazil's AmBev by the end of next week. The judge said they have made sufficient progress to expect a quick resolution.
Femsa filed a lawsuit to block parts of the deal and some analysts believe it hopes to buy back at a cheap price Interbrew's 30 percent stake in Femsa's beer unit. Market heavyweight America Movil, the biggest wireless company in Latin America, fell 0.2 percent to 19.58 pesos on Friday although its ADR gained nearly 1 percent to $33.81.
The company received approval from Uruguay's government on Thursday to operate in its wireless market. Spanish rival Telefonica was also given licenses to operate in the South American country.
America Movil and Telefonica are in a tight battle for dominance of Latin America's wireless market.
Boosted by peso demand ahead of monthly tax payments early next week, the local peso currency gained 0.77 percent to close at 11.55 per dollar. Earlier this week, it fell to an all-time low of around 11.69.
"What is helping the peso is the tax payment. It is due next week but the market is anticipating," said Ruben Fernandez, head of operations at Monex brokerage.
Mexican companies have to pay taxes by the 17th of every month so they typically buy back into pesos in the days before that deadline.

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