Mexican shares gain in holiday-shortened session

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Mexican stocks rose in abbreviated trading Wednesday, with telecommunications issues contributing to the benchmark IPC's advance.

The IPC closed up 166 points to 22,340.70, marking a gain of 0.8% on the session. The index of the 35 most actively traded shares rose 0.5% on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.9%, easing back following their 4.9% jump on Tuesday, after the cement maker said it is continuing to reach agreements to refinance debt.

The company has refinanced about $4 billion in maturities, "comfortably surpassing the $3 billion that we felt it had at a minimum to achieve," said UBS analysts Gordon Lee and Rodrigo Monteiro in a note Wednesday.

The broker still has a sell rating on Cemex's shares, however, and said that they remain at a premium to cement suppliers Holcim and Lafarge.

Banking stocks ended mixed. Banorte  fell 0.9% and Inbursa lost 0.6%, but Banco Compartamos shook off losses and rose 0.2%.

Retailing stocks also finished mixed. Wal-Mart de Mexico rose 0.3%.

Exchanges in Brazil and Argentina were closed. All exchanges in Latin America will be closed Thursday in observance of Christmas.