Bolsa Index Drops 18.2 on 2nd Kidnaping : Mexico: Abduction of wealthy businessman triggers another stock market decline.

The abduction Monday of a second wealthy Mexican in six weeks sent shivers through the Mexican business community Monday and deflated an early stock rally triggered by a stronger peso.

The Bolsa index closed down 18.23 points at 2,191.08 after falling back from a session high of 2,289.60 points.

The narrower INMEX index also closed lower, but advancing shares outnumbered declines 40 to 38 in the wider market.

“The market is extremely sensitive to bad news like the kidnaping of Angel Losada of Grupo Gigante, piled on top of other events,” said analyst Jose Alanis at the brokerage Arka.

Losada, the vice chairman of Gigante and son of the chairman, also sits on the board of Grupo Financiero Banamex-Accival, whose chairman, Alfredo Harp Helu, was kidnaped last month outside his Mexico City home. Harp is still being held by unknown abductors.

Losada, reported to be in his 40s, was grabbed by several armed men at midday as he drove in an affluent neighborhood of Mexico City.

The stock market had been buoyed earlier by the peso’s firmness, expectations of easier short-term interest rates at this week’s treasury bill auction and good first-quarter results from heavily weighted Telefonos de Mexico.

But “news of the kidnaping revived the sense of uncertainty, and many investors took profits on the market’s recent gains,” a trader said.

In addition to the two kidnapings, investors have been concerned about the peasant rebellion in southern Mexico and the still unexplained assassination in late March of the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio.

Gigante B shares led the losers, ending down 7 cents at 56 cents.