|
Latin American stocks were mixed, with Brazilian stocks dipping, in line with the U.S. market, amid concerns about a recent surge in global oil prices. Meanwhile, Mexican shares edged up amid tame local inflation data.
Brazil's Bovespa Index shed 23.29 points, or 0.06%, while Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index added 24.07 points, or 0.12%, and Argentina's Merval Index jumped 24.34 points, or 1.27%. Brazilian stocks were little changed, as concerns about the inflationary impact of a recent spike in global oil prices weighed in against continued optimism about the local economy and interest rates. Last Friday, oil prices hit a fresh record high above US$ 75 a barrel amid mounting tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Adding to recent optimism about the local economy, the Brazilian central bank's latest weekly market survey showed that analysts and economists lowered their forecasts for 2006 inflation as measured by the official IPCA index. It was the fourth consecutive week that the survey showed declining inflation expectations. Meanwhile, analysts maintained their year-end forecasts for gross domestic product and the benchmark Selic interest rate. In corporate news, a major investment bank raised its price target for the shares of oil giant Petrobras to US$ 138 from US$ 125. Meanwhile, another bank shuffled its model equity portfolio for Brazil, adding airline Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA and wireless carrier Vivo Participações SA. The bank also cut Banco Itaú Holdings Financeira SA from its focus list and replaced it with Banco do Brasil SA. As for Brazilian equities overall, the bank reiterated its "overweight" recommendation, saying, "External fundamentals remain strong, domestic economic fundamentals are improving, political risk remains manageable, and local participation in the equity market may increase as interest rates gradually decline over 2006." Long steel firm Gerdau SA said it expects iron-ore prices to rise between 10% and 20% when contract negotiations are completed with global iron-ore miners. Mexican shares jumped on the session, hitting their fourth-consecutive record. The Bank of Mexico took economists by surprise this past Friday when it reduced the overnight lending rate by 25 basis points to 7%. Meanwhile, Mexican retailers continued to benefit from Friday's positive sales report for the month of February. In today's economic headlines, the Bank of Mexico said that the Consumer Price Index advanced 0.03% during the first two weeks of April, below analyst expectations. The latest result reduced the annual rate to 3.37% from 3.41% at the end of March. Turning to corporate earnings, home construction firm Geo posted a 25% increase in its first-quarter net profits to 227.7 million pesos from 182.4 million pesos a year ago. Sales jumped 19% to 2.25 billion pesos, while Ebitda advanced to 313.3 million pesos. Meanwhile, ICA announced that it signed four construction contracts totaling 1.32 billion pesos. The engineering and construction firm said the projects' execution times range from six months to a little more than two years. Within the banking group, the International Finance Corp., the private sector arm of the World Bank, said it may invest up to US$ 70 million in Banco del Bajio for a 15% stake. Argentine issues jumped alongside gains in Mexico. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services upgraded the global foreign and local currency ratings on the Republic of Argentina, and lifted its foreign and local currency corporate credit ratings on several local entities. Thomson Financial - www.thomsonfinancial.com
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.