Emerging equity markets tracked Wall Street and commodity prices higher on Thursday, racking up their fifth consecutive week of gains. News that US bank Wells Fargo forecast a better-than-expected first-quarter profit and that Japan was launching a massive economic stimulus plan to fight a deepening recession supported investor appetite for risk.
Yield spreads between emerging market bonds and US Treasuries, a key measure of risk aversion, narrowed 14 basis points to 559 basis points their tightest since mid-October according to the J.P. Morgan EMBI+ index. Latin American stocks, bonds and currencies posted gains, although many markets in the region were already closed for pre-Easter holidays. Regional markets will be closed on Friday.
The MSCI stock index for emerging markets jumped 3.67 percent on Thursday, extending to more than 30 percent a rally that has started in the beginning of March. The Latin American portion of the MSCI indicator ended Thursday 3.17 percent higher, led by a gain of 3.07 percent on Brazils Bovespa index Brazil on Thursday announced that it is joining the International Monetary Funds financial transaction plan, the mechanism through which the fund finances its loan operations.
That means that Brazil will effectively become a creditor of the institution. With the move, Brazil will make as much as $4.5 billion available to the IMF, on top of the $10 billion it had already pledged at a G20 meeting last week. Chiles blue chip IPSA index rose 1.66 percent, with investors awaiting a key interest rate decision by the central bank.
After markets closed, Chilean policy-makers cut the countrys overnight lending rate by 50 basis points to 1.75 percent, in line with economists expectations. The bank had slashed the rate by record six percentage points during the first quarter. In foreign exchange markets, the Brazilian real firmed 1.47 percent to 2.172 per US dollar while the Chilean peso gained 0.29 percent to 578.30 per greenback. Financial markets were closed in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay.