Brazil's stock market closed higher on Friday after consumer price data boosted expectations of interest rate cuts while the local currency gained on heavy dollar inflows.
The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's benchmark Bovespa index climbed 1.66 percent to 29,307.9 points, piercing the 29,000-point level for the first time in over five months and nearing within striking distance of its all-time high set in March.
The real, which is trading near a 40-month high thanks to heavy dollar inflows from trade and high domestic interest rates, gained 0.43 percent to 2.311 a dollar.
"There were a lot of dollar inflows and investors temporarily aren't worried about the political situation," said Julio Cesar Vogeler, a currency trader at the Didier Levy brokerage in Sao Paulo.
Investors have kept tabs on an ongoing bribes and campaign financing scandal in Brasilia since it broke in June.
Though Severino Cavalcanti, the president of the lower house of Congress, is facing an ethics probe, there has been a pause in new allegations of wrongdoing by aides to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva or members of the ruling Workers' Party.
On the stock market, nearly all listings posted gains, with iron ore miner Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, or CVRD, rising 1.95 percent to 75.19 reais.
Another blue-chip share that rallied was state-run oil company Petrobras, whose shares jumped 3.49 percent to 33.85 reais.
Stocks rose after the Getulio Vargas Foundation business school released its closely watched IGP-M general price index, which showed that prices fell 0.56 percent in the last 10 days of August.
Comments
Comments are closed.