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| July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's currency had its biggest gain in six years after ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon led early presidential returns.
Stocks and bonds also surged. The peso jumped 2 percent to 11.111 pesos to the dollar at 11 a.m. New York time. The gain is the biggest since July 3, 2000, the day after Fox won a landslide vote, ending 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Calderon had 36.45 percent of the vote, based on 96 percent of ballots counted by the electoral institute. Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor and candidate for the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, had 35.4 percent. The two candidates, separated by 392,728 votes, both declared victory in Mexico's closest ever election. Concern that Lopez Obrador, 52, will challenge the results may make gains in the peso short-lived, said Alonso Cervera, a senior Latin American economist with Credit Suisse in New York. Lopez Obrador, while saying he would respect the electoral institute's final results, told supporters last night that authorities must respect his victory    ........ |