Stocks Set New Record
May 03, 2011
Despite the late start and the lack of traders on the floor, the market continued the rally that has characterized it for the past week, climbing by about 50 points in initial trading before losing force on profit-taking and a sluggish Wall Street. The market's key IPC Index rose 10.58 to 3412.37, after rising 77.12 to 3401.79 Tuesday. Volume totaled 978 million pesos on 126 million shares traded. Trading began at 11:30 a.m. EDT after about 40 traders managed to get past pickets blocking entrances to the Mexico Stock Exchange. The pickets are members of Fathers for Families, a group angry about new school entrance exams that limited student access to universities. The pickets were still surrounding the building when the market closed but caused no further disruption to trading. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 31.44 to 5689.82. Traders said investors were still bullish on Mexico, encouraged by a continuing series of positive economic data. Most recently, the government reported second-quarter growth of 7.2% above the year-ago period, and a July trade surplus of $461 million. Leading winners were nominal shares of textile company Texel, which rose 30 centavos to 3.80 pesos, and B shares of tourism developer Situr, which gained 7 centavos to 95 centavos. Losers were led by sports retailer Grupo Marti nominal shares, which fell 10 centavos to 2.25 pesos, and B shares of bottler Femsa, which slipped 75 centavos to 23 pesos. Bellwether Telmex's L shares gained 32 centavos to 12.74 pesos, while its American depositary receipts rose 75 U.S. cents to US$34.125.
