Stocks up in Mexico, Brazil; down in Argentina, Venezuela
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Wednesday, March 5, 2003
(03-05) 14:41 PST MEXICO CITY (AP) --
Mexican stock prices inched up in slow trading Wednesday, helped by share buybacks and the weakening of the peso against the dollar.
The market's key IPC index closed up 0.1 percent or 3.17 points to 5,914.41. At the end of 2002, the IPC stood at 6,127.09.
Volume was 57.1 million shares worth 783.7 million pesos, compared with Tuesday's 46.4 million shares traded.
A Mexico City trader said the local market moved a little independently from U.S. equities as some companies took advantage of current prices to buy back their own shares.
Among individual stocks, bellwether Telmex L shares rose 0.9 percent to 16.36 pesos, retailer Walmex C shares rose 0.9 percent to 22.45, while brewing and bottling concern Femsa UBD shares rose 0.6 percent to 35.95.
Wireless telephony concern America Movil L shares slipped 0.4 percent to 7.57.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's stocks ended higher Wednesday as light bargain hunting offset previous losses amid paper thin volume as investors slowly returned from the Carnival holiday.
After tracking losses in Wall Street for most of the session, Brazil's key Ibovespa index ended 0.24 percent higher at 10,305 points on volume of 263 million reals.
Among the gainers was bellwether Telemar, which ended 0.84 percent higher at 23.90. Oil giant Petrobras, however, lost 2.53 percent to 41.61 reals.
Power distributor Eletropaulo dropped 1.42 percent to finish at 22.97 as investors remain aprehensive over the future of the utility. Brazil's development bank BNDES is expected to take back control of the company after AES, which owns the utility, missed a loan payment in January.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine stocks closed mixed Wednesday, taking in stride a Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of last year's "pesification" decree, which converted dollar loans and deposits into devalued pesos.
The blue chip Merval Index was 1.41 points, or 0.2 percent lower at 595.17 points. The broader General Index was 28.89 points, or 0.01 percent higher, at 28,309.36 points.
Twenty two companies rose, 30 fell back and 11 were flat. Volume traded was 26.73 million pesos.
In the end, two of the three blue chip bank stocks closed the day higher. Banco Frances was up 1.2 percent to 5.08 pesos and local bank Bansud 2.9 percent at 1.41. Only banking group Grupo Financiero Galicia fell back, closing 3.3 percent lower at 78 centavos.
In its decision, the court ordered the state-owned Banco de la Nacion to return almost $250 million in dollar savings that the province of San Luis had held in the bank when the so-called pesification decree converted all dollar-deposits into recently devalued pesos at ARS1.40 per dollar. With the peso now worth 3.185 per dollar, the dollar deposits are now worth less than half their original value.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan shares ended a lower Wednesday with the IBC General Stock Index closing at 8,155 points, down about 4 percent, following the market's biggest stock, telephone giant CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, which lost 2.7 percent.
CANTV, as the company is known, ended at 2,296 bolivars per share, down 64.00.