Brazil's stocks rose on Friday as higher crude oil prices boosted shares of state-controlled Petrobras, while the national currency gained on investment inflows to local fixed-income securities. The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's benchmark Bovespa index was 0.53 percent higher at 64,515.01 points, gaining even after disappointing data on US jobs cast doubt on the health of the United States economy.
Optimism on Petrobras helped push the index higher, said Andre Querne, a partner at Rio Gestao de Recursos. Petrobras, the top-weighted stock in the Bovespa index, rose 1.9 percent to 80.18 raise, tracking gains of more than 1 percent in crude prices in New York and London.
Steelmaker Gerdau rose 2.34 percent to 61.2 raise, while CSN was up 1.7 percent to 67.12 raise. In the foreign exchange market, the real strengthened 0.58 percent to 1.708 per US dollar, as investors continued to pour dollars into local fixed-income securities. Brazil, which has among the highest interest rates in the world, has lured funds from investors seeking to boost returns as rates fall in the United States and other countries. "Brazil continues to attract a lot of speculative funds into fixed-income securities," said Mario Battistel, foreign exchange manager at the Fair brokerage.
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