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Brazil shares climb up 1 percent in volatile trade

SAO PAULO: Brazilian stocks recovered some ground after mid-week losses, closing 1 percent higher on Friday in highly volatile trade on the last day of the month and quarter, also helped by Nasdaq recovery, traders said.

Brazilian beer merger AmBev shot up 12.5 percent to 1,350 reais in a second day of sharp gains following the approval by country's anti-trust agency of the merger between top local brewers Brahma and Antarctica. Brahma rose 6 percent to 1,378 reais.

The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's leading share index Bovespa rose 0.98 percent to 17,820 points, but was still below the support level of 18,000 points which the index crossed for the first time in a long time on Thursday.

Still, the Bovespa climbed up nearly 1 percent for the whole of March and is up 4.3 percent since the start of 2000.

"Trading here today was very volatile, as it was in New York. It was the last session of the month and quarter, when many companies close their fiscal year books doing corresponding buying or selling," said John Carioba, a director of Indusval brokerage.

Trading was light at around 660 million reais, only about half of last month's daily average of 1.2 billion reais.

"With less than a billion reais traded per day, we cannot be talking about a good market," Carioba said, adding that foreigners were still mainly sidelined or selling only.

Traders singled out a healthy rise of 8.6 percent in pay TV and Internet firm Globocabo, which they said had been undervalued recently mainly due to rumours of a new share subscription at a low price of 2.5 reais, which never happened. Globocabo closed at 3.3 reais on Friday.

Traders also noted that the Ambev rally may not last long as the number of the company's stocks available in the market was limited. They said Friday's turnover in Ambev was small.

AmBev said Thursday liquidity should improve after 60 days when the U.S. Securities Exchange is expected to approve the swap of Brahma American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) into AmBev ADRs.-Reuters