2018.03.2920:57:00UTC+00BRAZIL: Ibovespa Rises Tracking Banks And U.S.

Ibovespa, the benchmark stock market index in Brazil, rose 1.78% to 85,365.56 points THursday, tracking the rebound in U.S. stock markets and boosted by shares from local banks after the Brazilian central bank decided to cut compulsory rates.

Ibovespa had a weekly gain of 1.17% and remained almost stable in March.

"There was a repressed [buying] will after a string of bad signs coming from abroad. The improvement of the U.S. market helped a lot," said Eleven Research chief strategist, Adeodato Volpi Netto. He pointed out that the quarter closing brought buyer flow of those who needed to close quotas. In the first three months of 2018, the Ibovespa increased 11.7%.

Levante Investimentos chief strategist Rafael Bevilacqua also pointed to quarter-end influence in today's session. He said that higher prices for technology stocks in the United States, which suffered from the Facebook scandal related to Cambridge Analytics, brought relief to the global market.

Braskem's shares rose 6.81% while JBS's stocks rose 5.06%, both, according to Bevilacqua, boosted by the results of the fourth quarter of 2017. CSN's shares rose 5.77%. At the other end, Eletrobras' shares fell 0.82%, while Qualicorp's papers dropped 0.93%.

The banks, meanwhile, rose sharply, driven by the reduction in the compulsory rate from 40% to 25%, which should lower the cost of credit for the sector. Ital Unibanco's shares rose 1.99%, Bradesco's rose 2.65%, Banco do Brasil had a 2.53% increase and Santander's gained 4.45%.

Meanwhile, the locally traded U.S. dollar fell 0.93%, quoted at R$ 3.301, reacting to the reduction in tensions between the United States and Asian countries, positive indicators on the U.S. economy and the formation of March's Ptax. Throughout the week, however, the greenback touched R$ 3.346, the highest level since December.