Mexican peso benefits from Spanish likelihood of requesting bailout aid

Speculation about Spain preparing to solicit bailout aid for its debt-riddled banks benefited Latin America's most traded currency on Friday, Bloomberg reports.

The Mexican peso achieved its first gains in five days as demand for assets considered higher yielding spurred the climb. Thus far this year, the monetary unit has gained roughly 8.4 percent against the U.S. dollar and its performance on Friday slashed its weekly losses to 1 percent.

"Improved global risk perceptions, driven mainly by aggressive liquidity fixed by the leading central banks and speculation that the [European Union] is readying a financial bailout for Spain, are supportive of the peso today," states an email to Bloomberg penned by economist for global emerging markets Aryam Vazquez with Wells Fargo & Co.

The peso was last year's worst-performing monetary unit because of damages caused by the European debt crisis to the global economy and decreased demand for exports from Mexico.

The Wall Street Journal reports the peso last week achieved gains of 2.4 percent, which were largely propelled by the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing it will deploy a third round of asset purchases.