* Bond auctions in Europe ease fiscal crisis worries
* U.S. jobless claims jump most since October
* Brazil's Bovespa down 0.2 pct, Chilean IPSA up 0.6 pct
By Luciana Lopez
SAO PAULO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Latin American stocks seesawed early Thursday as relief over successful bond auctions in fiscally troubled Europe came up against disappointing U.S. jobs data.
The MSCI Latin American stocks index .MILA00000PUS rose 0.4 percent in early trading after a dip into negative territory, a day after posting its strongest gains since the start of December.
Jobless claims in the United States -- the world's largest economy, and a major regional trading partner -- jumped last week to their highest level since October. For details, see [ID:nN13271305]
Brazilian stocks turned negative after the U.S. data were released, and the MSCI index slipped into the red.
"Since we rose a lot yesterday, we've got some space for a certain amount of profit-taking," said Newton Rosa, chief economist for SulAmerica Investimentos in Sao Paulo. "There are still a lot of potential sources of instability in the market."
But successful bond sales in Spain and Italy, coming after a strong auction by Portugal the day before, helped to ease fears about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. [ID:nLDE70C15C]
The worries have affected global markets for months, with investors periodically dumping riskier assets.
Stocks could end the day largely sideways, Rosa said, between the easing of fears in Europe and profit-taking after recent advances.
Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index .BVSP turned around early gains to fall 0.2 percent, potentially capping a three-session winning streak. The index closed at its highest point since November on Wednesday.
Shares of energy company OGX (OGXP3.SA) fell 1.3 percent, leading losses, followed by steelmakers Usiminas (USIM5.SA) dropping 1.2 percent, Gerdau (GGBR4.SA) off 0.8 percent and CSN (CSNA3.SA) down 0.9 percent.
State-controlled oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA) helped limit losses, rising 0.3 percent.
Chilean stocks climbed, with the IPSA index .IPSA up 0.6 percent, tracking an extension of yesterday's recovery from a four-session drop earlier this month.
Shares of industrial conglomerate Copec (COP.SN) moved up 1.5 percent, trading near August levels. Competing wood pulp exporter CMPC (CAR.SN) added 2.2 percent. (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured site: So, Why is Wikileaks a Good Thing Again?.
No comments:
Post a Comment