Latin American stock markets posted heavy losses on Thursday, amid heightened aversion to risky assets, after the latest inflation data in the United States raised investor fears of an aggressive hike in interest rates. interest in that country and a possible recession.
Consumer prices in the United States rose 9.1% in June, the biggest annual increase in more than four decades, due to a scenario of persistently high costs of gasoline, food and rent, which reinforces the expectation that The Federal Reserve will raise interest rates 75 basis points this month.
Meanwhile, the dollar registered a significant advance in global markets and registered new highs in more than two decades because the US currency was seen by investors as a refuge value.
The losses were led by the Chilean peso, which depreciated 3.12% to 1,039.50/1,039.80 per dollar, a day after the Central Bank applied a sharp increase in interest rates. Meanwhile, the leading index of the Santiago Stock Exchange, the IPSA, lost 1.12% to 5,062.21 units.
Chile’s central bank unanimously agreed on Wednesday to raise the benchmark interest rate to 9.75%, above market expectations, as part of its strategy to counteract inflationary pressure.
The rapid increase in the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), which began a year ago, had brought it to 9% at the beginning of June. In July last year, the Central Bank raised the rate from the technical minimum of 0.5% to 0.75%.
The Brazilian real fell 1.58% to 5.4763 units per dollar, while the Bovespa index of the Sao Paulo B3 stock exchange fell 2.33% to 95,604.52 points.
The Mexican peso was trading at 20.9818 per dollar, with a loss of 1.26% against the Reuters reference price on Wednesday, in line with the performance of currencies in the region.
“The Mexican peso is experiencing another volatile day, still with the hangover from yesterday’s inflation figure in the United States that fuels fears that the Fed will increase interest rates more aggressively and end up affecting economic growth,” he said. local firm CI Banco in a report.
The main stock index S&P/BMV IPC, which includes the 35 most liquid companies in the Mexican market, fell 1.36% to 46,816.21 units, in line with the Wall Street markets that succumbed to a weak start to the season second quarter reports.
The Colombian peso opened with a fall of 1.33% to 4,550 units per dollar, while the benchmark index of the stock market, the MSCI COLCAP, lost 2.19% to 1,290.42 points.
In Argentina, the peso fell 0.16% to 128.03 per dollar in depreciation regulated by the central bank, while the Merval stock index fell 1.67%, to 100,557.16 units, infected by the negative trend of the external squares.
The Merval “remains at 347 points measured in US dollars, remaining 64 points below its value at the end of the year and representing an accumulated loss of 15.3%,” said Portfolio Personal Inversiones.
The Peruvian currency, the sol, lost 0.61% to 3.973/3.979 units per dollar. Meanwhile, the reference of the Lima Stock Exchange yielded 2.18%, to 463.11 points.
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