UPDATE 1-Brazil stocks creep up after worst week in a year
July 5th, 2008 | by admin |(Recasts and updates prices)
SAO PAULO, July 4 (Reuters) - Brazilian stocks crept higheron Friday, after its worst week in nearly a year, in a sessionlow in liquidity due to U.S. Indepence Day holiday, while thenational currency also firmed.
The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange’s benchmark Bovespa index.BVSP was 0.2 percent higher at 59,365.35 points afterfalling 7.7 percent this week as financial worries kept globalstock markets under pressure.
Brazil’s currency, the real BRBY, rose 0.19 percent to1.608 per dollar.
State-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the top weightin the Bovespa, helped underpin the market, rising 1.5 percentto 43.20 reais as crude prices came off their highs but keptabove $144 a barrel.
Vale, Bovespa’s second most heavily weighted play, rose 1.2percent to 43.21 reais.
Vale (VALE5.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(RIO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) began on Friday a series of meetingswith potential investors in its $15 billion global share offerand said it will take orders for the deal from July 11 to 15.
The local market regulator (CVM) has cleared the offer.The shares on offer will be priced after bookbuilding is closedon July 16 and will only begin trading after that.
Interest rate futures <0#DIJ:> on the BM&F commodities andfutures exchange in Sao Paulo were broadly higher as analystscontinue to bet on more rate hikes in Latin America’s largesteconomy.
