Latin American stocks are mostly lower today with declines in
crude oil and metal prices. The ongoing debt problem in Europe also
is weighing on stocks.
In Europe, concerns continue to escalate over Spain, whose
10-year government bond yield rose above the 6% level for the first
time since last December. Spain is trying to dramatically reduce
its government deficit but is facing a severe recession and a very
high unemployment rate. Credit default swaps for Spanish debt also
rose.
Here's where the Latin American market stand this morning:
- Ibovespa is down 369.32 (-0.59%) to 61,736.2812
IPC (Mexico City) is down 384.92 (-0.98%) to 38,972.89
Santiago Index IPSA is down 6.28 (-0.14%) to 4,521.18
Merval Buenos Aires is down 0.33 (-0.01%) to 2,501.75
Bunge Ltd (
BG
) was suspended from Argentina's grain exporters' registry after a
local tax agency accused the company of avoiding 435 million pesos
($99 million) of payments in 2006 and 2007. BG previously had been
suspended from the registry in March 2011 as part of a separate tax
probe. Following the previous suspension, an appeals-court ordered
the company be returned to the registry because it didn't receive
enough time to defend itself, according to Bloomberg News.
U.S.-listed BG shares are down about 0.5% this morning.
Also, Chevron (
CVX
) and Transocean (
RIG
) won an important break in a pair of civil cases stemming from a
well rupture off the coast of Brazil last November when a judge in
Rio de Janeiro on Friday moved the case to another court,
effectively removing a crusading prosecutor who had been seeking 20
billion reais ($11 billion) from each of the firms as
penalties.
The move, published in a court filing and obtained by Reuters,
follows another decision earlier last week also siding with the
companies that saw a federal rejecting requests to bar the firms
from operating in Brazil. Chevron owns 52% of the Frade field with
Brazil's state-led oil company Petrobras (
PZE
) owning a 30% stake. Two Japanese firms, Inpex Corp and Sojitz
Corp, own the remaining 18%.
Also today, Gol Linhas Aereas (
GOL
) is down nearly 3% today after the stock was lowered to Neutral
from Overweight at HSBC.