International Business

FOREIGN STOCK MARKETS

Stock index trends in native currencies and in U.S. dollars adjusted for currency fluctuations. The dollar-adjusted returns are what U.S. investors would realize.

MEXICAN STOCKS

Mexican stocks closed slightly higher amid moderate volume.

Grupo Industrial Maseca, Mexico’s largest maker of corn flour, said first-quarter earnings rose 23% in the first quarter as lower costs for corn made up for a drop in flour sales. Sales volume increased by 5.4% as more Mexicans ate tortillas during the economic crisis.

The first-quarter profit of $29.15 million reported by Grupo Financiero Serfin continued the recent pattern of earnings reports, outperforming analysts’ grim forecasts, traders said. The group’s profit fell 47% from a year earlier, but many investors had been expecting worse.

Sources: Dow Jones, Bloomberg Business News

SPOTLIGHT: BULGARIA

Desperate for ways to bolster its economy in its post-Communist slide, Bulgaria has again turned to the arms industry--the motor of its economy before the Soviet Bloc collapsed. It has suffered, though, because of U.N. sanctions against Iraq, Libya and the former Yugoslavia imposed in the early 1990s.

Sources: Bank of America, World Information Services