Chile’s Peso And Stocks Surge As Voters Tilt Back Toward The Right

Chile’s markets delivered a clear verdict on the first-round election: investors like the prospect of a more market-friendly shift.

On Monday the peso rallied, driving the dollar down to an intraday low near 912 before profit-taking lifted it back to a close around 924. At the same time the S&P IPSA jumped 3.1% to a record 9,904 points, the best showing among equity benchmarks.

Behind the move is the arithmetic of Sunday’s vote. José Antonio Kast heads into the 14 December runoff with a strong path to victory after centre- and right-leaning forces together cleared the 50% mark and gained ground in Congress.

Local strategists say that mix points to fiscal discipline, friendlier treatment of private investment and a more predictable rule-of-law environment after years of experiment.

The global backdrop was not especially benign. The DXY trades just below 99.5 after a 0.3% rise last week as investors brace for a backlog of U.S. data and push back hopes of rapid Federal Reserve rate cuts.

Copper slipped in London, but prices near $5 per pound, a narrowing current-account deficit and solid activity – with third-quarter GDP expected around 1.8% year-on-year – gave the peso extra support.

Intraday, the peso’s surge left technicals stretched. On the daily chart USD/CLP now sits well below its main moving averages, MACD is deeply negative and RSI has slipped into oversold territory, while the four-hour chart still shows a clear downtrend but with momentum beginning to stabilise.

Dealers report heavy institutional buying and repatriation flows, yet warn that the pair could snap back toward 930–940 if polls tighten or global risk appetite fades.

Equities told the same story. The IPSA’s advance was led by SQM-B (+11.3%), Cintac (+10.7%), Ripley (+9.1%), SQM-A (+8.7%) and pension manager Cuprum (+7.0%), while laggards included Cementos (-10.2%), Soquicom (-2.7%), CGE (-1.8%), Hites (-1.4%) and Pehuenche (-0.1%).

Abroad, the iShares MSCI Chile ETF rose about 2.6% to $37.3 on sharply higher volumes, signalling renewed foreign interest in Chilean assets even as Wall Street and other developed markets slid.

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