The region's markets ended the year on an upbeat mood, with an added fillip provided by favorable economic news from the US, which pushed the Dow Jones Index to break the 12,500 mark in New York Wednesday. Latin American exchanges racked up numerous record highs this year as the earlier "mini-crash" became a distant memory and the continuing buoyant price of commodities helped to lift many of the markets to stellar heights. Mexico's benchmark IPC index was up 0.38% to end the day Thursday at a historic 26,295.21, taking the overall gain for the year to 47.7%. Although Brazil's Bovespa finished trading down 0.14%, it was up overall 33% during the year. As a whole, the region's stock markets were up 38.40% in 2006, according to Morgan Stanley, making it the best-performing emerging market region, ahead of emerging markets in Europe (31.3%) and Asia (29.4%).