Chile's peso jumps, Brazil's real drops

Chile's peso starred among Latin American currencies on Friday, bouncing off an all-time closing low on news of a chunky central bank intervention program, which set it on course for its second best day in more than a decade.

The country's central bank late on Thursday said it would sell up to $20 billion in foreign currency interventions starting on Monday aiming to stabilize the peso, which prompted some short-sellers to scale back bets on further weakness.

"Chile has around $40 billion in reserves," said Guido Chamorro, a portfolio manager for Pictet Asset Management in London.

"This (FX intervention) program is $10 billion plus $10 billion. It is a pretty big number but if it's big a number, it better work." The announcement had the desired effect despite the release of data on Friday showing manufacturing production dropped 5.8% in October from a year earlier, as well as news of sinking profit at state-owned copper mining giant Codelco.

Stocks on Sao Paulo's Bovespa dipped 0.4%, as the energy sector bore the brunt of a 2% decline in Brent crude futures, with shares of oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) falling 1%. Mexican equities slid 0.5%, largely on losses among consumer staples and materials, broadly in line with the decline seen in the peso. While Colombia's peso softened 0.5% and stocks slipped 0.2%, Argentinean assets marked time.