Chile's stocks ended nearly unchanged on Friday despite heavy trading due to a large secondary offering by Chile's leading brewer. The IPSA blue chip index, slipped 0.03 percent to 1,740.98 points. The all-market IGPA index inched up 0.01 percent to 8,744.77, according to preliminary closing figures.
"The markets closed flat because investors had concentrated on liquidating in order to participate in the auctions," said Rodrigo Sarria, deputy commercial manager at Intervalores brokerage in Santiago.
Top US brewer Anheuser-Busch sold off its 20-percent stake in Chile's leading brewer CCU in an auction valued at about $300 million on Friday.
CCU, the session's value leader, fell 2.47 percent to close at 2,900.00 pesos per share.
On the other hand, SQM, the world's biggest speciality fertiliser company, was up 1.27 percent to close at 3,180.00 pesos per share. On Wednesday it reported its quarterly net profit had jumped 94 percent.
On the foreign-exchange market, the peso currency strengthened for the third day in a row against the US dollar with help from the central bank's decision to raise its benchmark interest rate 0.25 percentage point to 2.25 percent at its monthly monetary policy meeting on Thursday.
The peso closed at 596.50/597.00 per US dollar, up 0.67 percent from 600.50/601.00 on Thursday.
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