Mexican peso steers Latam FX to one-week low
Brazil's stock index at record high
Mexico stocks outlook dampened by weaker economic prospects
Peru's copper output may fall short of 3 mln ton goal -SNMPE
Stocks, FX down around 1% each
Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET/ 1850 GMT
By Shubham Batra and Ankika Biswas
Aug 21 (Reuters) - Mexico's pesodropped over 2% against the dollar on Wednesday, leading losses among Latin American currencies as commodity prices fell sharply, while investors also assessed minutes from theU.S. Federal Reserve's Julypolicy meeting.
MSCI's Latin American index for currencies .MILA00000CUS fell nearly 1% to an over one-week low, as the Mexican peso MXN= fell for a third straight day to a two-week low,ahead of a slew of economic data and minutes from the U.S. central bank's last meeting.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley issued an "underweight" warning on Mexican shares, citingconcerns about planned changes to the judiciary and electoral system.
Mexico's main stock index .MXX fell 0.5% to a one-week low.
The Fed's minutes , released on Wednesday afternoon, showed policymakers last month strongly leaned toward cutting interest rates in September, and several would have even been willing to immediately ease borrowing costs.
"While the weak July Employment Report released since then might cause some Fed officials to lean toward a 50-bps move, for now we judge that a 25-bps cut remains the most likely outcome," said Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics.
Market participants see a nearly 64% chance of a 25 basis point cut in September.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday will be watched for further clues on the interest rate outlook.
Among other major currencies, Colombia's peso COP= fell 0.7% against the dollar, tracking sharp declines in oil prices , while Peru's sol PEN= and the Brazilian real BRL= slipped 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.
Bucking the weak trend, Chile's peso CLP= gained nearly 1% to hit a one-month high.
The MSCI index for Latam stocks .MILA00000PUS also fell nearly 1%, dragged by an over 2% drop in Argentine equities .MERV after a nine-day winning streak.
Data from Argentina, due later on Wednesday, is expected toshow economicactivity likely fell in June from a year agoamid tough austerity measures and cost-cutting under President Javier Milei.
Brazil's benchmark stock index .BVSP hit a fresh record high, outperforming all its major regional peers.
Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1850 GMT:
Equities | Latest | Daily % change |
MSCI Emerging Markets .MSCIEF | 1102.09 | -0.21 |
MSCI LatAm .MILA00000PUS | 2307.89 | -0.88 |
Brazil Bovespa .BVSP | 136579.49 | 0.36 |
Mexico IPC .MXX | 53749.52 | -0.39 |
Chile IPSA .SPIPSA | 6483.16 | -0.12 |
Argentina Merval .MERV | 1625981.4 | -2.007 |
Colombia COLCAP .COLCAP | 1344.06 | -0.1 |
Currencies | Latest | Daily % change |
Brazil real BRL= | 5.4814 | -0.06 |
Mexico peso MXN= | 19.3589 | -1.99 |
Chile peso CLP= | 914.35 | 0.98 |
Colombia peso COP= | 4029.5 | -0.67 |
Peru sol PEN= | 3.7442 | -0.29 |
Argentina peso (interbank) ARS=RASL | 943.5 | 0.052994171 |
Argentina peso (parallel) ARSB= | 1340 | 1.119402985 |
Reporting by Shubham Batra and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Richard Chang
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