Chilean stocks climbed on Friday, buoyed by strong fund buying and an optimistic outlook for second-quarter earnings, analysts said.
The IPSA blue-chip index gained 0.46 percent to 1,496.76 points while the broader IGPA index rose 0.36 percent to 7,613.31 points, according to preliminary closing figures.
"We've had some very good corporate data which reinforces the favourable outlook for several companies in the second quarter," said Rodrigo Cristi, analyst with Alfa brokerage.
"There was heavy demand from institutional investors," he said.
Dominant telephone company Telefonica CTC Chile finished 1.30 percent higher at 1,960.20 pesos after gaining nearly three percent in early trade.
The company's controlling company, Spain's Telefonica raised its stake in CTC to 44.89 percent from 43.64 percent via ADR purchases on Thursday, just one week ahead of a key shareholders' vote on CTC's plans to sell its mobile assets to Telefonica.
Some minority shareholders are unhappy with the terms of the deal. CTC's competitors have also questioned Telefonica's plans to merge the company's mobile business with those of Bellsouth Chile, which Telefonica acquired earlier this year.
"If the share is rising, it could be because there's going to be strong opposition or even a rejection of the offer by Spain's Telefonica," said an analyst who asked not to be named.
CTC's rival Entel rose 0.54 percent to 3,730 pesos.
Leading airline LAN jumped 2.47 percent to 2,400 pesos after reporting a 16.2 percent rise in June passenger traffic.
The peso currency fell slightly against the US dollar on Friday in apathetic trade.
The currency closed at 635.50/636.00 per dollar, a depreciation of 0.16 percent from 634.50/635.00 on Thursday and has depreciated 6.77 percent so far this year.
Comments
Comments are closed.