The growth in retail sales with Christmas purchases has given a boost to the stock markets in the United States, reducing the burden of flight cancellations caused by the rapid advance of the omicron variant in the country.
The Ibovespa, a reference on the Brazilian Stock Exchange, was influenced by the positive performance of the American market and closed up 0.63%, at 105,554 points, interrupting a sequence of two consecutive drops. The dollar retreated 0.40%, to BRL 5.6330, after having surpassed the BRL 5.70 at the opening of the trading session.
Shares in the retail sector led this Monday’s trading session on the Stock Exchange. Unlike what happened in the United States, however, the growth in the shares of companies linked to trade in Brazil is not the exclusive result of the increase in domestic sales in Natal.
“Retailers’ stocks rise, but it still seems to be a technical movement of correction and dismantling of short positions in view of the sharp falls in the month”, says João Beck, economist and partner at BRA.​
Retail sales at Christmas grew 11.1% compared to the same period last year, according to the Cielo Expanded Retail Index, informed the payment method company on Monday.
The growth was driven by online retail, which increased 38.6%, while physical stores grew by 8.8%.
Christmas sales in malls grew 10% this year, after discounting inflation, compared to last year’s shopping season, released Alshop (Brazilian Association of Shopping Mall Store owners) on Monday.
In the annual balance, the shopping centers project to end 2021 with R$ 204 billion in sales. The figure represents a growth of 58% compared to 2020. In comparison with the result of 2019, however, there was a decrease of 3.5%.
In the US, US retail sales increased 8.5 percent during the 2021 holiday shopping season, Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, driven by an e-commerce boom, a report by Mastercard Inc showed. .
A benchmark in the American market for bringing together 500 of the country’s main companies, the S&P 500 index rose 1.39% and reached its best historical score.
Nasdaq, which brings together a significant portion of companies linked to e-commerce, also rose 1.39% and came close to renewing the record score, achieved in November this year.
The country’s most traditional stock index, the Dow Jones rose 0.98%.
Trading volume this week, however, is below average due to the large number of absent traders.
For analysts at Clear Corretora, this reveals low investor interest in taking a position and the irrelevance of this session of B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, in the direction of the market in the very short term.
The Wall Street Journal’s analysis of the US market on Monday says this is traditionally “a low-frequency but optimistic week.”
Shares in the healthcare industry’s companies were also positively impacted by a South African study published in the scientific journal Medrxiv.
The analysis suggests that omicron has up to 70% less chance of hospitalization compared to the delta variant. If compared to the first strains (Alpha, Beta and Gamma), the percentage reaches 80%.
Magazine Luiza’s shares advanced 9.35%, leading the highs in the trading session. Everton Medeiros, a specialist at Valor Investimentos, says that the increase mainly reflects the company’s disclosure of the R$ 2 billion issue in debentures. “This also pulled highs across the sector,” he said.
Via advanced 8%, occupying the second highest rise of the day, followed by Qualicorp, which rose 4.91%
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