The persistence of inflation in the United States ended the truce in the financial market. The dollar interrupted a sequence of three falls and returned to approach R$ 5.20. The stock market had the biggest daily drop in three months, following the external market.
The commercial dollar closed this Tuesday (13) sold at R$ 5.188, up by R$ 0.09 (+1.77%). The quotation even operated lower in the first minutes of trading, but reversed the trend shortly after the announcement that consumer inflation in the United States reached 0.1% in August, above forecast.
With today’s performance, the US currency accumulates a drop of only 0.27% in the month. In 2022, the currency declines 6.96%.
The day was also tense in the stock market. The B3 Ibovespa index closed at 110,794 points, down 2.3%. This was the biggest daily pullback since June 17th. Despite today’s drop, the indicator still hasn’t returned the gains accumulated in the last few days. In the last three sessions, the stock market had risen 3.32%.
The behavior of consumer prices in the United States negatively surprised investors, who had expected negative inflation in August. Price resistance raises the chances that the Federal Reserve (Fed, US Central Bank) will raise key rates by 0.75 percentage point next week, although investors have started betting on a 1-point rise.
The economic data was poorly received on Wall Street. US stocks had the biggest one-day drop in two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Dow Jones Industrial Companies Index fell 3.94%. The Nasdaq index of technology companies tumbled 5.16%. The S&P 500, of the top 500 companies, fell 4.32%.
Higher interest rates in advanced economies encourage the flight of resources from emerging countries. In Brazil, the situation was not worse only because the Selic rate (basic interest rates in the economy) is at 13.75% per year, with a chance of being raised to 14% at next week’s meeting. At the highest level since 2017, the fee offers partial protection against financial capital flight.
*With information from Reuters
