Chile’s consumer prices rose more than forecast last month, underscoring the central bank’s caution over further interest rate cuts after it spearheaded reductions in Latin American over the past year, Bloomberg News reported. Prices increased 0.5% from March, above the 0.4% median estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The annual inflation rate rose to 4% from 3.7% in the chained series, the national statistics institute reported Wednesday.

Chile's central bank said in a report on Tuesday that the economy is broadly recovering, though some sectors have lagged and financial market depth has not yet returned to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. The bank pointed to the South American country's commercial, construction and real estate sectors as having fallen behind, which it said had elevated the possibility of defaults. "The external scenario continues to be the main source of risks for local financial stability," according to the bank.

The retail shakeout has reached Brazil, where local players are starting to restructure and consolidate amid stiff competition from foreign giants like Amazon.com Inc., MercadoLibre Inc. and Shein Group Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. Though e-commerce reshaped retailing in the US and Europe even before the pandemic, a confluence of economic, financial and logistical circumstance kept the South American nation insulated from the trend until later.

Argentina cut its key interest rate for the third time in three weeks as officials bet on a sustained slowdown in consumer prices and race to shrink the central bank’s interest-bearing liabilities, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers lowered the benchmark rate to 50% from 60%, according to a statement released Thursday that cited a significant easing in price pressures over recent months. Officials have cut rates five times from an initial 133% since President Javier Milei took power in December.

Colombia’s central bank lowered its key interest rate by half a percentage point to 11.75%, defying calls from the government for a deeper cut to boost economic growth, Bloomberg News reported. Five of the seven-member board backed the decision, Governor Leonardo Villar told reporters in Bogota. One argued for a deeper reduction, of three quarters of a percentage point, while another called for a full percentage point cut.

Grupo Casas Bahia SA shares jumped as much as 21% after the Brazilian retailer filed an out-of-court deal with its main creditors to reschedule the payment of 4.1 billion reais ($801 million) in debt, Bloomberg News reported. The plan was built with Banco Bradesco SA and Banco do Brasil SA, the main creditors, which hold approximately 55% of the debt in bank loans, according to Casas Bahia’s chief financial officer, Elcio Ito.

Brazil’s jobless rate ticked up less than expected last month, likely adding to central bankers’ concerns that the labor market is running too hot, Bloomberg News reported. Official data released Tuesday showed the unemployment rate rose to 7.9% in March from a month earlier as nearly 8.6 million people were jobless in the period. The central bank plans to lower the benchmark interest rate by half-point next month and is keeping a close eye on hiring as it charts its subsequent moves.

After years of fits and starts, Venezuela is setting the stage for one of the largest and most complex debt restructurings in decades — unwinding a $154 billion web of defaulted bonds, loans and legal judgments owed to creditors from Wall Street to Russia, Bloomberg News reported. President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s recent hiring of Rothschild & Co. as a financial adviser marks a first step in a massive undertaking that’s likely to drag on for years.

Brazil’s inflation cooled more than expected in early April, but fell short of soothing policymakers’ fears about lingering price pressures on Latin America’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Official data released Friday showed prices increased 0.21% in the first two weeks of April from a month earlier, less than all estimates in a Bloomberg survey, whose median forecast was 0.29%. Annual inflation came in at 3.77%.

In a conference room of the run-down headquarters of Brazilian retailer Americanas SA, Camille Loyo Faria agrees that the office has seen better days, Bloomberg News reported. It’s “ugly, as a company in judicial recovery should be,” the chief financial officer says. The 50-year-old started at the Rio de Janeiro-based company on Feb. 1, 2023, in the wake of its bankruptcy protection measure and accounting fraud that eventually reached 25 billion reais ($4.8 billion) — one of the biggest-ever in Brazil. It’s just the latest company that Faria has helped pull out of distress.