The dollar was up against the real in the first trades this Friday (29), recovering some steam after having plummeted more than 6% in the last four trading sessions and reversing its accumulated gains for the month, in a session that promises to be volatile due to the Ptax formation at the end of July.
At 9:08 am, the spot dollar advanced 0.18%, at R$ 5.1713 on sale. On B3, at 9:08 am, the dollar futures contract of the first month fell 0.35%, to R$ 5.1695.
In this trading session, the Central Bank will auction up to 15 thousand traditional foreign exchange swap contracts for the purpose of rolling over the maturity date of September 1, 2022.
On Thursday (28), the American currency fell to its lowest since mid-June. While the US currency lost strength, the stock market closed in the blue. The benchmark index of the Brazilian Stock Exchange rose 1.14% to 102,596 points.
The Ibovespa was also positively influenced by the 3% rise in Petrobras’ preferred shares, which confirmed a new distribution of dividends with a value higher than analysts’ expectations.
In general, risky investments outperformed the security of fixed income pegged to the US currency after the release, in the morning, of data on the unexpected slowdown in the US economy.
US GDP (Gross Domestic Product) fell at an annualized rate of 0.9% in the last quarter, the Commerce Department said in its preliminary estimate. Economists polled by Reuters predicted a rise of 0.5%.
This lowered investors’ bets for more aggressive hikes in the Fed’s interest rate.
In practice, the market considered it worthwhile to bet on stocks or fixed income in emerging economies that pay high interest rates, such as Brazil, since the return on US Treasury bonds tends to be below expectations.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500 parameter indicator climbed 1.21%. Nasdaq, which brings together stocks in the technology sector and with greater growth potential, advanced 1.08%. The Dow Jones, which tracks high-value companies, rose 1.03%.
Last Wednesday, the Fed pointed to limits to the continuation of its program of progressive rate hikes, although it applied a new hike of 0.75 percentage point in its rate.
The focus of the credit crunch is to fight inflation in the United States, which is at 9.1%, the highest in four decades.
Signs that the economy may slow to the point of driving the country into a recession, however, raise discussions about the calibration of US monetary policy.
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