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Brazil real closes 0.4 pct stronger at 1.784/dlr

SAO PAULO: The Brazilian real closed stronger Thursday for the sixth consecutive session at 1.784 per dollar, a new six-month high, due to capital inflows caused by optimism over Brazil's new global bond.

Traders said bond offerings normally increased dollar supply in Brazil and Wednesday's issue of $1 billion of 20-year global bonds was not an exception. The bonds rose nearly two points on Thursday, to 98.2 from 96.4 points.

"On top of the paper launch abroad, which brought dollars, we have had positive dollar flows in the past few days," said a trader with a foreign bank, who put net dollar inflows on Thursday at $160 million.

Standard & Poor's rating agency has assigned a stable outlook to the bonds and said it reflected the recovery of financial stability in Brazil, one year after the real's steep devaluation in January 1999.

The real at current levels was still 32 percent below last year's pre-devaluation mark.

The market ignored Federal Reserve Board Governor Laurence Meyer's warnings of a possible rise in inflation in the United States, traders said, attributing the lack of impact to an already priced-in rise in US interest rates.

Prospects of a rate rise in the US normally push the real down.-Reuters