Chile stocks pare gains in line with US, peso flat

SANTIAGO, April 17 (Reuters) - Chilean stocks pared their gains in afternoon trade on Thursday, pulled lower by Wall Street, while the peso ended unchanged against the dollar for a second day as the central bank continued buying dollars to curb the strength of the country's currency.

The all-market IGPA index .IGPA rose 0.60 percent in opening trade but then pared its gain to 0.07 percent at 14,063 points, while the blue-chip IPSA .IPSA traded 0.06 percent higher at 3,029 points.

U.S. stock indexes fell on Thursday after surging more than 2 percent the prior session on strong earnings reports.

"U.S. markets are falling. Today's financial reports have not been very positive," said Rodrigo Andaur, an analyst with FIT Research. "Our bourse moderated and I think it's related to the trend in U.S. markets."

"We've also had several days of gains, and there could be some temptation to take profits," Andaur added.

Stocks have risen for five days since the central bank intervened to curb the strong peso and indicated that interest rates could be cut rather than raised despite relatively strong inflation.

On the Santiago exchange, the IPSA's 40 blue-chip stocks were evenly divided between rising and falling issues.

Endesa Spain regional energy group Enersis ENE.SN advanced 1.31 percent to 179.75 pesos a share, while wood pulp and paper company CMPC CAR.SN rose 1.73 percent.

Other rising issues included fertilizer exporter SQM SQM_pb.SN with a gain of 1.52 percent leading domestic supermarket chain D&S DIS.SN, up 1.32 percent.