By Purvi Agarwal

May 13 (Reuters) - Latin American currencies and stocks were mixed on Wednesday, after logging declines in the previous session, as investors awaited a meeting between the Chinese and U.S. presidents and assessed the prospects of an Iran peace deal.

President Donald Trump said he does not expect to need China's help to end the Iran war, in remarks made before he arrived in Beijing for his summit with China's Xi Jinping.

Markets await outcomes from the meeting that could include trade policy as well as developments in the Iran conflict that has disrupted energy shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed inflation to multi-year highs in many economies.

Data showed U.S. producer prices posted their biggest gain since early 2022. The indication of accelerating inflation pushed up the dollar index =USD and weighed on regional currencies.

"The Federal Reserve has an inflation problem on its hands at a time when the labor market has slowed down, and that makes its job much more difficult," said Clark Bellin, CIO at Bellwether Wealth.

MSCI's index tracking Latin American stocks .MILA00000PUS was up 0.2%, while the currencies equivalent .MILA00000CUS was down 0.1%.

Brazil's real BRL= weakened 0.6%, putting it on track for its biggest one-day drop since April 23. Heavyweight stocks .BVSP were off 0.2%.

Local retail sales volumes beat expectations and reached a record high in March, but were still pressured by high interest rates. The central bank delivered an expected 25 basis-point cut last week but kept its options open for the June meeting.

"We now expect the Brazilian central bank to use the position of a still elevated policy rate to continue cutting by only 25 bps at the next meetings, with an acceleration of the easing cycle becoming increasingly difficult in this environment," said analysts at J.P.Morgan.

"In a scenario of more prolonged inflationary effects, it could pause the cycle at some point this year."

Colombia's peso COP= weakened 1% against the dollar, trading at over two-month lows. Its stocks .COLCAP, up 0.3%, were supported by a 2.4% gain in oil producer Ecopetrol ECO.CN despite reporting a 7.7% drop in net profit in the first three months of 2026.

Mexico's peso MXN= was little changed, while its stocks .MXX were up 0.3%.

Credit ratings agency S&P on Tuesday revised Mexico's outlook to "negative" from "stable", citing the risk of very slow fiscal consolidation that could lead to a faster-than-expected buildup in government debt and a higher interest burden.

On the flip side, Chile's peso CLP= gained 0.7% as prices of copper reached their highest levels since January 29, but stocks in the world's largest copper exporter .SPIPSA lost 0.8%.

Elsewhere, many of Ukraine's bonds traded around record highs, after rallying earlier in the week. Russian President Vladimir Putin had said over the weekend he thought the Ukraine war was coming to an end.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies:

Latin American market prices from Reuters
Equities	Latest	Daily % change
MSCI Emerging Markets .MSCIEF	1705.95	0.41
MSCI LatAm .MILA00000PUS	3151.23	-0.19
Brazil Bovespa .BVSP	179901.5	-0.24
Mexico IPC .MXX	70225.62	0.27
Chile IPSA .SPIPSA	10560.17	-0.76
Argentina Merval .MERV	2757254.6	-1.28
Colombia COLCAP .COLCAP	2094.45	0.28
Currencies	Latest	Daily % change
Brazil real BRL=	4.9211	-0.58
Mexico peso MXN=	17.2113	0.03
Chile peso CLP=	889.68	0.71
Colombia peso COP=	3801.09	-1.02
Peru sol PEN=	3.4293	0.08
Argentina peso (interbank) ARS=RASL	1386	-0.15
Argentina peso (parallel) ARSB=	1400	-0.36