Brazil stocks little changed; real drops

SAO PAULO, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Brazil's stock market seesawed near the unchanged mark on Friday as gains in steelmaker CSN and local banks Bradesco and Itau were offset by a decline in state-controlled Petrobras and mining giant Vale.

The Bovespa index .BVSP of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange was 0.12 percent lower to 55,865.77 points. Shares of steelmaker CSN gained after industry sources in Japan said a group of local steelmakers and trading house Itochu would make a joint bid for a CSN unit.

Brazilian banks took a boost from Wall Street, where news of a possible investment in U.S. bank Lehman Brothers lifted sentiment on financial services firms. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1 percent, helping lift Brazilian shares.

"New York opened strongly higher and we tracked those gains," said Ricardo Tadeu Martins, research manager at the Planner brokerage.

Petrobras and Vale, however, fell, as commodity prices sagged.

Brazil's currency, the real (BRBY), weakened 0.56 percent to 1.619 per U.S. dollar, tracking the greenback's rally against major global currencies.

On the stock exchange, steelmaker CSN (CSNA3.SA) rose 2 percent to 56.1 reais. Japanese steelmakers Nippon Steel and JFE Steel will join with trading house Itochu to bid for CSN's Namisa iron ore unit, which may fetch as much as $10 billion, industry sources said. For details [ID:nT359486].

Bradesco (BBDC4.SA), Brazil's largest private sector bank, climbed 0.9 percent to 30.46 reais, buoyed by positive sentiment on financial shares after the state-run Korea Development Bank said buying Lehman was one of its options for acquisitions. Itau (ITAU4.SA) gained 0.8 percent to 31.51 reais and Banco do Brasil (BBAS3.SA) rose 1.3 percent to 23.6 reais.

Unibanco UBBR11.SA rose 0.6 percent to 19.17 reais. The bank, which recently hired a Deutsche Bank banker to head its London brokerage, plans to bulk up its international business, betting that demand from overseas investors for Brazilian securities will grow, Unibanco's head of investment banking said in an interview.