EMERGING MARKETS-Latam assets up amid cenbank moves, Sino-US trade whispers

By Pranav Kashyap

May 9 (Reuters) - Latin American currencies ticked up on Friday, poised to etch out modest weekly gains, on the heels of a flurry of central bank meetings across the region, and as a narrative of a potential Sino-U.S. trade accord kept investors on alert.

MSCI's gauge for Latin American currencies .MILA00000CUS ticked up 0.4% on the day and was up 12.4% for the year so far. For the week, it was poised to record marginal gains.

In Brazil, the real BRL= firmed 0.1% in the session, positioning itself for a 0.4% weekly gain. Most of the gains stemmed from the central bank's move on Wednesday to hike interest rates to their highest peak in nearly two decades, deployed to combat stubbornly persistent inflation.

Fresh figures underscored this challenge, with April's annual inflation rate escalating to 5.53%, overshooting the central bank's 3% target.

Despite these inflationary headwinds, Sao Paulo's stock index .BVSP advanced 0.6%, charting its longest winning streak in over a year.

Mexico's peso MXN= appreciated by 0.28%, while its benchmark stock index .MXX gained 0.22%, after it touched its highest peak in over a year on Thursday.

However, a note of caution emerged as data revealed a dip in the country's consumer confidence index, which edged down to 45.3 in April.

In Peruvian markets, stocks .SPBLPGPT rose 0.7% and the sol PEN= slipped 0.16% after a surprise move from the central bank.

Defying expectations, particularly after a recent uptick in annual inflation, the monetary authority trimmed its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.50%. This marks another step in Peru's gradual monetary easing, with the key rate descending from 7.75% since September 2023, positioning it among the lowest in Latin America.

In Colombia, the consumer price index climbed 0.66% in April, bringing the South American economy's 12-month inflation rate to 5.16%, a figure that surpassed analyst expectations in a Reuters poll.

Despite this, and amidst slightly tempered inflation predictions from some quarters, fiscal challenges, and an uncertain international economic stage, Colombia's central bank also delivered a surprise rate cut last month.

Colombia's peso COP= rose 0.1%, while Bogota's stock index .COLCAP managed a gain of 0.38%.

The week saw Latin American policymakers vigilantly navigating a complex economic chessboard, assessing a deluge of domestic data and the reverberations of U.S. tariff policies, while anxiously awaiting clearer signals from U.S.-China trade negotiations.

"The raft of inflation data out of Latin America this week generally painted a picture of still strong price pressures, with headline rates in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia all rising last month. But there's a notable difference between the emphasis central banks are putting on inflation versus growth," said Kimberley Sperrfechter, emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

Shifting focus beyond Latin America, Romania's leu EURRON= was bracing for its most substantial weekly decline since January 2009. This sharp depreciation was largely attributed to political crosscurrents following the first-round presidential vote, where hard-right candidate George Simion took the lead.

Ratings agency S&P Global has warned that the current political upheaval in Romania is putting the country's coveted investment grade credit rating under increasing threat.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies: