SANTIAGO -(Dow Jones)- Chilean investors will now be able to locally trade some of the heaviest weighted and most reknowned U.S. shares as 16 U.S. companies started trading on the Santiago Stock Exchange Thursday. The move aims to improve the Chilean exchange liquidity, diversify the instruments it offers and provide local investors who don't have foreign accounts access to U.S. shares. Shares from Apple Inc. (AAPL), AT&T Inc. (T), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), Citigroup Inc. (C), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), General Electric Co. (GE), Google Inc. (GOOG), Halliburton Co. (HAL), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM), Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), Pfizer Inc. (PFE), Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Wal-Mart Sores Inc. (WMT) began trading on the Chilean exchange through Deutsche Bank's sponsorship. A sponsor manages the custody of local investors' international shares and listing through it is one of the ways foreign shares can access the market in Chile. In Chile, daily trading of foreign shares totals nearly $1 million while total daily market volume is around $200 million. "Our goal for foreign shares' daily market volume to reach $20 million," said Jose Antonio Martinez, chief executive of the Santiago Stock Exchange, the country's largest bourse. By Graciela Ibanez, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-715-8929; graciela.ibanez@dowjones.com
