Investors should buy bearish Mexican stock options at record-low levels because the equities may slide “dramatically” as the Federal Reserve ends its stimulus and Europe struggles with its debt crisis, BNP Paribas SA said.
Anand Omprakash, a New York-based equity derivatives strategist, recommended buying September $55 puts to sell the iShares MSCI Mexico Investable Market Index Fund (EWW), which rose 1.8 percent to $62.20 yesterday in the U.S. The options are “inexpensive” after the ETF’s implied volatility, the key gauge of option prices, for at-the-money options expiring in three months fell to a record low of 19.76 yesterday, he said.
Mexico’s benchmark IPC index has retreated 5.1 percent this year as worse-than-estimated U.S. reports on jobs and manufacturing fueled concern that the economic recovery is slowing. Latin America’s second-biggest economy, which sends 80 percent of its exports to the U.S., grew 2.4 percent in April, the least since December 2009 and below the median forecast for an expansion of 3 percent in a Bloomberg survey, the national statistics agency said on June 28.
“Mexican equities could be at risk if the current ‘soft patch’ in the U.S. economy persists” through 2011 or causes a recession, Omprakash wrote in a report. “The Mexican economy is heavily dependent on the strength of the U.S. economy.”
The end of the second round of so-called quantitative easing in the U.S. this month, a possible U.S. credit downgrade or default with a breach of the U.S. debt ceiling, the European sovereign debt crisis and tensions in the Middle East could all cause a selloff of Mexican stocks, according to the note. 
“A lot of investors are concerned by the various crises that are transpiring right now,” Omprakash said in a telephone interview. “All four of these crises combined make an argument for hedging pretty compelling.”
Bloomberg/ Vannucci/Kerns/ 06/30/2011
Buy Mexico Put Options as Stocks May Fall ‘Dramatically,’ BNP Paribas Says
Florida Latin Connection/Business/ Arnoldo Varona,Editor
Related posts:
- Business: Mexico Considers Raising Frequency, Amount of Dollar Options, Cordero Says..
- (Business) Mexico Credit: Cemex Topping List of Bond Issuers as Loan Repayment Looms
- Business: Latin America Taxes, Mexico Improves
- Business: Chile’s La Polar Posts Record Fall as Loss-Induced Trading Halt Lifted
- Peru Stocks Jump Most Since 2009 as Humala Weighs Endorsing Free Markets..
No comments yet.